BOSTON -- Friends and co-workers who knew a Boston woman killed by a three-ton concrete slab in a Big Dig tunnel Monday grieved for her as investigators talked to her husband about the bizarre accident that claimed his young wife.

Milena Delvalle, 38, and her husband, Angel, 46, were going to Logan International Airport to pick up a brother and sister-in-law who were returning from a vacation in Puerto Rico when one of the tiebacks in an Interstate 90 connector tunnel gave way, sending the concrete ceiling panels crashing onto the Delvalle's car.

Milena was killed instantly but Angel managed to escape through a narrow opening on his side of the car with only minor injuries. He was treated and released from Massachusetts General Hospital and made only brief comments to reporters as he returned to his apartment.

"I wanted to do the impossible," he said in Spanish, of his efforts to extricate his wife from beneath the tons of concrete that crushed their car. "I wanted to get her out of the car."

The couple had only been married for about a year-and-a-half, friends said, and he called her "the best thing that ever happened in my life." Some of them went to apartment to offer condolences Tuesday.

"She was a very caring, loving person. She cared for everybody. She cared for the people," friend Jackie Calcano said, describing Milena Delvalle as a sweet person who worked at a neighborhood bakery.

"They're real good people and bad things happen to good people," another friend, Rico Figeroa, said.

"He was very friendly person, so open to people and happy always," the family pastor, Rev. Lisa DePaz, said.

Angel Delvalle worked in the meat department at the Hi-Lo Foods supermaket in Jamaica Plain, where co-workers were stunned.

"It's a shock. It's a terrible shock," manager Bill Jordan said. "He's a great guy, quiet. Comes in every day."

Friends described the couple as hard-working and deeply religious.

"I thank God, first of all, because he gave her the privilege to go and see His family, and that was one of her desires, and the other desire was go get her citizenship, which she got," Calcano said.