Her voice was trembling during her panicked call to 911. Abby Short had been on her way home from her job as a paramedic, heading southbound on Ga. 15, when out of nowhere a car pulled into her lane.
"The car slid in front of me and I couldn't stop," Short said during the call, released Friday afternoon. "I'm just hurting a lot. I'm sorry."
From her car, Short couldn't see the car she had hit, which had ended up in a ditch. But she had survived and her injuries were not life-threatening. Five others were not as fortunate.
As the University of Georgia campus continued to mourn Friday for the four students who perished, a fifth remained in a coma with critical injuries. While more details offered some insight into the deadly crash, the biggest question remained unanswered: How did it happen?
“It’s just a long stretch of country road,” Oconee County Sheriff Scott Berry said of Ga. 15. “The truth is I don’t know why they crossed the center line, and I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”
It’s a two-lane road, and sometimes drivers speed or try to pass cars illegally, Berry told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution late Friday. Which is not to say that’s what happened Wednesday night with the UGA students. Still, very few crashes occur on Ga. 15, certainly not like the one that just claimed four young lives, Berry said.
According to the Georgia State Patrol, Agnes Yena Kim, 21, of Snellville, was driving a Toyota Camry northbound on Ga. 15, toward the UGA campus, when she crossed the center line into the path of Short’s Chevrolet Cobalt. It was just before 9 p.m. Wednesday. Kim may have over-corrected at the time of the crash, according to a GSP preliminary report released Friday. When Kim’s car crossed the center line, the passenger side of her Toyota and the front of the Chevrolet collided.
Short was able to call 911 while still inside her car. But all three backseat passengers in Kim’s car died at the scene — Kayla Leigh Canedo, 19, of Alpharetta; Brittany Katherine Feldman, 20, of Alpharetta; and Christina Devon Semeria, 19, of Milton. Semeria, the only one in the car not wearing a seatbelt, was ejected, investigators said. Halle Grace Scott, 19, of Dunwoody had to be extricated from the front seat. She was taken by ambulance to Athens Regional Medical Center, but she did not survive.
The heartbreaking news spread quickly on the UGA campus, where the four students killed were members of three different sororities. They had met Kim when she was their resident assistant, and all five remained friends. Kim, active with both the Young Life student ministry and Classic City Church, is a popular student known for her desire to help others.
“Everyone on campus loves her,” Brittany Torres said Thursday at an impromptu vigil outside UGA’s Tate Center. “Nobody is such a light. … I just pray for her safe recovery.”
Lisa Mason and her husband, the pastor of Classic City Church, visited Kim on Friday in intensive care at Athens Regional Medical Center, where they prayed over her. Kim’s condition was mostly unchanged from the day before, Mason said, and she remains in a coma.
If there was anything positive from the tragic crash, it was the outpouring of support for the families and friends of those affected.
In Washington, D.C., U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., called for a moment of silence Friday morning in the House of Representatives. Hice’s district includes Athens and Oconee County.
“The remarkable impact of these women upon UGA’s campus is evidenced by the thousands of students, faculty and staff who gathered yesterday in an outpouring of love, support and remembrance,” Hice said. “Mr. Speaker, this tragedy is every parent’s worst nightmare, and our hearts ache for these families.”
On campus, the mood was overwhelming sadness and shock, according to Houston Gaines, student government president. It was quieter than normal.
“Students are still trying to understand how something like this could happen to such young students,” Gaines said. “Something like this is mind-blowing.”
Even on a sprawling campus where more than 35,000 students attend, the tragedy touched everyone.
“These deaths show you how small this campus truly is,” said Brittney Grisham as she drank coffee before going to class Friday morning. She’s a 21-year-old junior from Cumming, studying public relations and fashion merchandising. “All those girls? Your friends knew them all in some way.”
She finished her coffee. “It makes you put things in perspective,” Grisham said. “You can’t take things for granted.”
Funeral arrangements for the students had not been finalized late Friday. A candlelight memorial service will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the campus chapel to honor the 15 students and 12 faculty and staff members who have died in the past year.
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