After Fatal Bucks Crash, Family Bringing 'Uncle Eddie' Home

BENSALEM, PA — In two weeks, Charles Edward Hopper Jr. was going to walk his niece, Chalsie, down the aisle at her wedding.

"He was everyone's rock," Chalsie, a preschool teacher in Girard, Ohio, told Patch. "Uncle Eddie wasn't just a normal uncle. He was a father to his two nephews and myself."

Now, that family is working to bring Eddie home, after the big rig he was driving early Saturday crashed and went off a bridge on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Bensalem. His tractor fell 40 feet from the bridge, and Hopper, 49, was declared dead at the scene.

In addition to burial costs for the man who loved fishing, riding his Harley-Davidson and watching "The Three Stooges," the family is facing the cost of bringing Eddie's body back to Ohio.

Chalsie has launched a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe to help with that, and with funeral expenses.

"We called around and got some figures, and we are at a disbelief on how much everything is," she said. "It's not about the money. It's about coming together and making sure he is at peace."

Chalsie said Hopper was helping raise a grandnephew, Joey, and that the two were inseparable — "partners in crime, we always said." He would take Joey fishing and for golf cart rides, and they would joke that Eddie was going to win the lottery one day, so he could stay home all the time.

"Joey still has not come to terms with his passing," Chalsie said. "He still believes he is out delivering his loads and will be home when he is done."

Pennsylvania State Patrol troopers say Hopper was driving east on the turnpike at 1:26 a.m. Saturday as he approached the I-276 overpass at Newportville Road.

His rig drifted to the right and slammed into the guard rail just before the bridge, then into a concrete barrier at the bridge. It went over the barrier, plummeting about 40 feet to the ground below and landed on its left side in a wooded area near a creek.

In Ohio, the rest of the family is trying to cope, too. Chalsie said she, her mother and her uncle are working to take the load off of Eddie's mother as her own wedding approaches.

"He was so excited and proud for that day," she said. "He was going to give his 'Blondie' away, which is the nickname he called me. He had a special name for everyone."

Tuesday morning, the GoFundMe campaign had raised $2,090 of a $15,000 goal. You can view the campaign here.