A Brazilian influencer and his pet golden retriever were killed on a US highway while on his ‘dream tour’.
Jesse Koz was living his dream travelling from his home country through America to reach Alaska, when he crashed his 1978 Volkswagen Beetle into another vehicle.
Herald and News reports that the 29-year-old swerved to avoid traffic on Highway 199 near Selma in Josephine County when he collided with a Ford Escape driven by Eileen Huss, 62.
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Huss and a two-year-old child also in the car were transported to hospital, where they were treated for minor injuries.
The highway was then closed off for two hours.
Koz, who had documented his trip on social media, had visited 17 countries since 2017; however, his travels to Alaska were slowed down in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Daily Mail.
As a result, Koz could not cross the Mexico-United States border, which forced him to return to Brazil.
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However, his highly anticipated trip resumed the following year. He crossed from the Mexican state of Nuevo León to Texas and later visited the NASA Space Centre in Houston, then headed to the Deep South.
The 29-year-old and his dog, named Shurastey, then made it to Florida, before heading to the East Coast, Illinois, Kansas, and Arizona and then crossed through California.
Koz shared on social media that he woke up early one morning in February this year to watch the sunset with Shurastey.
He wrote: “I told him how important he was to me, and that I wouldn't have made it this far without his company. He just smiled with his tongue hanging out and breathed not my face.
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“I just wanted to enjoy a sunset in the company of my friend, I know we still have many more to come and as far as it depends on me we will always be together until the sun sets one last time.”
The Brazilian social media star playfully named his trip ‘Shurastey or Shuaigow’, a tribute to his golden retriever while alluding to The Clash’s song ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’.
He also spoke of the ‘freedom’ he felt while on his US trip.
He wrote: “There is no happiness without freedom, and I always paid a lot to be free in this project.
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“'I came out of a prison that was my old life where others made the decisions for me so I could have the freedom to choose what I wanted!”
Charisa Bossinakis