BOSTON -- Monday's tunnel collapse evokes frightening images for any driver, but one local woman experienced the terror for real. A local taxicab driver was in the tunnel as Milena Del Valle's car was crushed Monday night.

NewsCenter 5's Sean Kelly reported that minutes after 12 tons of concrete rained down on Del Valle's car in the Interstate 90 connector tunnel approaching the Ted Williams Tunnel, longtime cab driver Suzanne Marie approached the tunnel entrance and the accident site.

"And it was just ahead, in the left-bound lane, and there were three or four cars stopped behind it," Marie said.

Marie could see from 50 yards away that someone had been hit.

"You could see the taillights gleaming from underneath the rubble and there was one slab that was ... here's the wall ... that was like this, over the center of the car ... that was the slab that was dangling," Marie said.

The first state trooper arrived and other witnesses stood near the car.

"People were trying to help out ... they were running around the car and yelling," Marie said.

Her own passenger, who was headed to Logan International Airport, became upset.

"He was very upset and he was banging on the partition and he said we had to get out of here, we had to get out," Marie said. "He was panicking."

Angel Del Valle, 46, Milena's husband, managed to get out through his car window with minor injuries. Wednesday, he thanked reporters outside his sister's Dorchester home in Spanish. He surrounded himself with friends and family while investigators search for clues to what caused the collapse that claimed his wife's life.

"There's no reason to be angry about an accident. You just question it, you just wonder, 'Why?'" Duane Nelson, the victim's brother-in-law, said.

Del Valle leaves behind three grown children in her native Costa Rica, which is where her husband plans on burying her. There will also be a service locally at the hispanic community church in Jamaica Plain on Friday or Saturday.