Remembering the Ghost Ship victims: 'You don't forget people like that'
OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- We're learning more about the victims in the warehouse fire. Many who died were talented artists who passed before their time.
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Hanna Ruax was a yoga instructor and jewelry maker who had just relocated to Oakland from Finland. She was engaged to Alex Ghassan, a filmmaker.
They weren't the only couple who passed away in the Ghost Ship fire. Alex Vega and his high school sweetheart Michela Gregory also spent their final moments together. "They loved each other very much," said Lucero Govea, a Capuchino High School wellness counselor. "It's just very tragic for them to just have been taken from us so soon. It just really hits close to home."
Vega made quite the impression on his former counselor, who says he was a creative and gentle soul.
"There's just something about him, his presence that definitely sticks out to me. You don't forget people like that, you just don't forget," said Govea.
Sonia Kominek-Adachi says her friend Amanda Kershaw was also memorable. "She's an infectious personality and she comes in and she's a firecracker," she said.
Kominek-Adachi got to know Kershaw as her hairdresser before encouraging her to share her photography in the salon she worked at. "She has grown so much personally, professionally and artistically in the five years that I've known her," Kominek-Adachi told ABC7 News.
These young people represent many artists in their prime whose lives ended too soon.
RELATED: Some victims of Oakland warehouse fire identified
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