NJ Turnpike Crash Victim, 5, Held Mother's Hand During Cancer Treatment, Family Says [VIDEO]

Pam O’Donnell battled cancer, but she had her 5-year-old daughter to help her through it.

That’s what she told NBC New York this week after her daughter and husband were killed in a New Jersey Turnpike crash, remembering that the young girl held her hand as her mom went through cancer treatments.

“I’m struggling with how I survived cancer to have my life ripped apart from me,” O’Donnell told the station in a tearful interview.

A funeral mass, meanwhile, has been planned for Bridget and Timothy O’Donnell, 48, who was a popular science teacher at Hudson County Prep in Jersey City.

A Mass will be held on Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Parish of St. John Paul II in Bayonne, where the O’Donnells lived. Arrangements are by the Sweeney Funeral Home of Bayonne, according to his Jersey Journal obituary.

Two fundraising pages have been set up to help the family, raising more than $25,000 so far: Click here and here.

A Hamilton Township man has been charged in connection with the three-car crash that killed a beloved science teacher and his daughter on the New Jersey Turnpike Monday afternoon.

Read more: Beloved N.J. Science Teacher, Daughter Killed In N.J. Turnpike Crash

New Jersey State Police charged 36-year-old Scott Hahn on Tuesday with two counts of manslaughter and two counts of vehicular homicide in the accident that resulted in the deaths of Bayonne resident Tim O’Donnell and his 6-year-old daughter, Bridget.

The accident happened around 3:23 p.m. on Monday on the New Jersey Turnpike - Hudson County Extension westbound, near Interchange 14C - Toll Plaza in Jersey City.

Read more: Hamilton Man Charged in Crash That Killed Teacher, 6-Year-Old Daughter

Pam O’Donnell told NBC that she had the difficult tasking of having to tell her other daughter, who is 6-years-old, what happened after she came home from school on Monday.

“She came into thehouse and she went room to room looking for Bridget and her daddy and I had nothing else to say but the truth,” she told the station.

Click here to watch more of that interview.