A horrific rollover crash happened last Friday — a car flipped, the passenger wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, and he was ejected with his body winding up on top of a freeway sign.
But there’s more to the story.
Richard Pananian’s family is questioning their faith after performing a lamb sacrifice for him just five days before the accident.
The family has performed a matagh, a traditional offering of the Armenian church, on October 25. They hoped the offering of the lamb would provide some protection for Richard.
Five days later, on Friday, he was headed to his new job at Glendale Collision Center. He was heading south on the 5 just north of the 134 when his Ford Fiesta rear-ended a pickup truck and then overturned. The CHP said Pananian was not wearing a seat belt. He was ejected and landed on the Colorado Street freeway sign.
Shortly before the crash authorities say they received several calls of a driver driving recklessly in a Ford Fiesta.
Armen Kardashian explained that the family had performed a traditional matagh for his “beloved cousin” less than a week before his death to thank God for sparing his life from an illness, but the offering apparently failed to remind Pananian to wear a seat belt. Kardashian said Pananian had always worn a seatbelt before Friday’s crash.
“I find it ironic that 5 days after this offering to God, not only did God choose to take this young man’s life, but decided to make such a spectacle out of it,” Kardashian said. “If God works in mysterious ways his way remains a mystery to me and has crushed this family as a whole.”
Now, his family is trying to raise $50,000 for “unexpected financial burdens,” and have set up a GoFundMe page.
Read more from the Los Angeles Times: Lamb sacrifice performed for man days before he was ejected onto freeway sign
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