Kseniya Alexandrova, who represented Russia in the 2017 Miss Universe pageant, died last week after a car accident involving an elk. She was 30.
The late model’s husband recalled the heartbreaking incident to Russian news outlet RIA Novosti.
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On July 5, the couple was driving on Russia’s sprawling M9 highway from the town of Rzhev in the Tver Oblast region when their car collided with the animal, according to a HuffPost translation. Alexandrova’s husband was behind the wheel, while Alexandrova sat in the passenger seat. Her husband noted that he was driving slowly because the road they were traveling on was being repaired, and it was a “high road” with no barrier for the animals.
When their car hit the elk, the airbags didn’t deploy, and the animal smashed through the windshield and struck Alexandrova.
“An elk jumped out from somewhere, jumped out in front of the car,” he said. “From the moment it jumped out until the impact, a split second passed. I did not have time to do anything. The elk flew into the car. [Alexandrova] got hit in the head. She was unconscious, her head was broken, everything was covered in blood.” He added that after the animal collided with Alexandrova, he could see part of her brain.
Screenshot @kseniyaalexandrova via Instagram
Alexandrova sustained severe injuries to her brain and was in a coma until she eventually succumbed to her injuries on Aug. 12.
“At first she was in a deep coma,” her husband recalled to the Russian outlet. “Then she went into a stupor. And then one day she completely regained consciousness. …She could not speak because she was on a ventilator, but she was absolutely conscious.”
He went on to say that despite the fleeting glimmer of hope, “one day she suddenly went back into a coma,” and her health began to rapidly deteriorate. “They were able to restart the heart once…but the next day Ksenya died. They were unable to restart the heart again,” he said.
Alexandrova and her husband got married in March, just four months before the accident.
In an April 2 Instagram post about her wedding day, Alexandrova wrote that she remembered every second of the event that was filled with so much “love and joy.” She added that she couldn’t believe her wedding could resonate so much “inside” of her.
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Another Instagram post on her account also reveals that she had completed a degree in psychology in 2021, and was starting to take on patients.
Her husband told the Russian outlet that he hopes his wife’s death will help prevent other accidents, and mentioned that people are “constantly dying from collisions” on the road they were traveling on when they hit the elk.
“I really hope that Ksenya’s death will not be in vain, and that somehow this barbarity will be stopped,” he said.
