A Russian former Miss Universe contestant passed away after an elk jumped in front of the luxury vehicle she was driving in.
Kseniya Alexandrova, 30, was a television host, psychologist, and beauty pageant titleholder who first became famous as Miss Russia before contending for the international title in 2017.
She was driving back from Rzhev in the country’s western Tver Oblast on an interstate highway with her husband when the animal sprang in front of their Porsche Panamera, resulting in her head injury that would ultimately turn fatal.
Highlights
- Kseniya Alexandrova, a Miss Universe 2017 contestant, passed away weeks after suffering head trauma in a July 5 car crash.
- Her Porsche collided with an elk in Russia, and her airbags reportedly failed to deploy.
- Despite surgeries and intensive care in Moscow, she succumbed on August 12.
The airbags in the Porsche Panamera they were travelling in failed to deploy
Image credits: kseniyaalexandrova
The accident took place on July 5 on the 191st kilometer of the M9 heading toward Moscow in what–according to her surviving husband Ilya, whom she had just married four months prior–transpired in a “split second”.
“I didn’t have time to do anything,” he told the state-owned RIA Novosti.
“She was unconscious, her head was broken, everything was covered in blood,” the agency reported him saying.
Image credits: kseniyaalexandrova
“The worst thing is that the frontal bones of the skull were broken. It was clear that there was an open craniocerebral injury.”
She would snap out of her coma, only for her condition to worsen
A passerby spotted carnage and phoned for help, which arrived in the form of an ambulance 15 minutes later.
Image credits: kseniyaalexandrova
The medics took the woman to the nearby Rzhev hospital, but there it was determined that she needed to go to the Research Institute of Emergency Care in Moscow due to the severity of her injuries.
There Alexandrova remained comatose and clung to life with the help of a ventilator. According to local sources, she gained consciousness temporarily, but her vitals deteriorated.
She underwent a second surgery, which put her back into a coma.
Image credits: Frazer Harrison/Getty
“They diagnosed meningitis, which turned into more severe inflammatory diseases of the brain. The tests began to deteriorate, and it got to blood sepsis,” the model's husband told RIA.
The section of road where Alexandrova got into the fatal accident has a reputation
Then Alexandrova crashed.
“They were able to restart the heart once... But the next day Ksyusha (a Russian diminutive for Kseniya) [passed away] - they were unable to restart the heart,” the widower explained.
Alexandrova passed away Tuesday, August 12.
Image credits: Travis Essinger/Unsplash (Not the actual image)
Local analysis suggests that because the car they were driving was built low to the ground, the impact, although not severe, “hit the animal’s legs, [and] the airbags did not deploy.”
Her husband is blaming the local authorities for not having a fence erected on a section of road where such accidents have occurred regularly and claimed lives.
“Someone is constantly dying in this place from clashes... I really hope that Ksyusha's [passing] will not be in vain, and that somehow this barbarity will be stopped,” RIA reported him saying.
The model's agency has since weighed in with their condolences
Image credits: kseniyaalexandrova
Alexandrova’s modelling agency has since also weighed in with their condolences.
In an Instagram post on August 11, it described the 30-year-old as “talented and extraordinarily bright,” claiming that she knew how to inspire and support the people around her.
“We sincerely mourn and express our deepest condolences to her family, friends and everyone who had the pleasure of knowing Ksenia,” the caption concluded.
As a nod to the prevailing peril of wildlife spilling onto roads, one netizen in the United States shared a similar experience.
Image credits: kseniyaalexandrova
“I live in deer territory in the United States, and one almost ran me over while I was jogging. Had I been three or four seconds sooner he would’ve trampled me and he was Large and when I say large, I mean huge,” she wrote.
Wildlife on roads are responsible for up to 2 million car accidents every year
“I've never liked elk, and I believe my bias is finally justified,” quipped a commenter feeling vindicated by the story.
Image credits: kseniyaalexandrova
These perspectives are underscored by a Pew study that estimated an average of 1 to 2 million collisions yearly involving large wild animals.
These incidents at the time converted to 200 human fatalities, 26,000 people injured, and no less than $8 billion in damages.
Similarly, the Humane Society and the Animal Protection Institute reported two years prior that over a million animals lost their lives daily—which was double the amount accounted for by hunting.
Fans are shocked by the news, with many offering their condolences on social media
