BOSTON -- The family of a woman who was killed in a Big Dig tunnel when concrete ceiling panels fell onto her car spoke out about the wrongful death lawsuit they filed.

Milena Del Valle's family accused the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and a number of design firms of negligence. Del Valle was killed on July 10 as she and her husband, Angel Del Valle, drove through the Interstate 90 connector tunnel.

"That night, on July 10, we were going to the airport, and we were on the way to pick up my brother and his wife from Puerto Rico, and little did we know, she was going to die on the way there. Our dreams were shattered," Angel Del Valle said. "It's very hard that everything you have loved, and in one day it is over. Four years ago, I came to the United States. I arrived here and I was alone and somewhat disoriented. I met that wonderful person that was Milena. The last four years that I lived with her have been the most wonderful years of my life."

With the help of an interpreter, Angel Del Valle and the victim's daughter described their loss.

"My mother was a very hard-working woman. We love her very much. When all of this happened in our lives, the first thing we felt in our hearts was that we lost the most important thing in our lives," Del Valle's, Raquel Ibarra Mora, said.

Officials have been focusing on the tunnel's bolts and the epoxy system that held up the ceiling panels in the tunnels.

Angel Del Valle said that he and his wife were aware that there had been problems with the tunnels, and he questioned why officials did not take steps to prevent the fatal collapse.

"People when they are going to perform this kind of job, they should think not just in making money. Thousands of people depend on the job they are doing," Angel Del Valle said. "I think God chose Milena and I to go through this so another bigger tragedy did not happen."

He said that he does not know why he survived the accident, but said that it's now his job to speak out about the tunnel failures.

"If I had died with her, then nobody would be able to tell what happened and how it happened," Angel Del Valle said. "I want justice for what happened."

"I think there is not just one person that there is to blame for this. I think what happened had happened a long time ago. People did not do their job properly -- people, construction companies, engineers, everyone that had something to do with the tunnel," Mora said.

Bechtel/Parsons-Brinckerhoff released a statement Wednesday that read, "We understand the Del Valle family's grief, and offer them our deepest and heartfelt condolences."