ST. LUCIE COUNTY — Eighth-grader Ari’yonnia Stanberry looked down and spoke quietly.

Her mother, Christina Harris, sat across from the 14-year-old as tears fell from the teen’s eyes.

“It’s hard. It’s something we’ll never get over,” Harris said Thursday. “She does counseling twice a week. We do family counseling together.”

Ari’yonnia is the only survivor of a fiery Nov. 23 crash that killed five young people, including Alexis Chaney, 17, whom Ari’yonnia referred to as a “sister.”

Ari’yonnia said they’d been at Walmart shopping on Black Friday and were dropping off a person at the time.

“The next minute we were driving down the road and I saw fire in the back seat. That’s when I was screaming for ‘Let Let’ (Chaney) and she wouldn’t answer me,” Ari’yonnia said. “So that’s when I was like, 'Can somebody please answer me?' Nobody would answer me, so I screamed for help.”

A GMC Yukon had slammed into the back of the pickup in which Ari’yonnia rode, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The pickup caught fire after the fuel tank ruptured.

More: Fundraiser benefits families of 5 killed in fiery crash in St. Lucie County

A bystander ran over and got Ari’yonnia out of the pickup. The teen sustained burns to her back and ears. The other five in the pickup died.

Harris, 33, expressed doubts about making it through the experience.

“She’s crying now, she’s going to have to deal with this for the rest of her life,” Harris said. “That’s hard seeing five people burn up in a car like that. She had to watch that, she experienced that.”

Arrested Tuesday in the crash at Midway Road and South 25th Street was 21-year-old Tanner Dashner, jailed on five counts each of vehicular homicide and DUI manslaughter.

More: 5 killed in crash: Tanner Dashner had blood-alcohol content three times the legal limit, report says

Investigators said Dashner’s blood-alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit of 0.08 percent, and that he was driving about 97 mph before slamming into the back of the pickup.

“She can tell me she’s all right, but I know she’s not all right,” Harris said. “She’s never going to be all right.”

More:Who is Tanner Dashner? Here's what we know

More: Fiery wreck leaves five dead near Fort Pierce

Harris said she learned about what happened when her daughter called. She had just gotten off work at Metro Diner in Stuart.

“She was like, ‘I need you now, we just got in a car accident, the car just got on fire, and I just seen my friend die,’” Harris said.

Harris and other family members rushed to Fort Pierce and saw her daughter at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute.

More: FHP: Driver in fatal crash that killed five was under the influence, driving an estimated 97 mph

“It was hard. Just seeing her all scratched up like that, bleeding, I broke down, told her, I’m sorry, I love her,” Harris said. “I feel bad for the other people. God, He spared her, gave her a second chance at life.”

Harris said she thanks the man who pulled her daughter out of the wreckage every day.

Ari’yonnia, a Stuart Middle School student, goes to school, but sometimes doesn’t stay all day.

She has a sister and four brothers, and said she barely sleeps.

Harris said Ari’yonnia hates fire.

More: Memorial grows at scene of Black Friday crash outside of Fort Pierce that killed 5

“She’s traumatized,” Harris said.

She sees changes in her daughter.

“I can’t fault her for when she has an attitude, I don’t know what she’s going through,” Harris said. “She’s got her days where she just wants to be in the dark. I see the change in her sleep pattern.”

More: Analysis reveals 77 days typically pass before arrests in fatal St. Lucie County crashes

Harris wants justice for those who died, but wants the same for her daughter. She wonders about charges against Dashner related to her daughter.

Law enforcement officials have not addressed that publicly in the past, and Florida Highway Patrol officials could not be reached late Thursday.

“What would it have to take, for her to die for him to (face charges involving her injuries)?” Harris said. “I have to hear from her, ‘Mom, why didn’t they charge him for me?' I don’t have no explanation for that.”

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