Local school teacher dies following fatal collision

BOWLING GREEN, Ky.-Warren County is mourning the sudden loss of a school teacher following the fatal car crash that took the life of Kaci Wilson, 26, over the weekend.

Sunday afternoon Campbell Lane in Bowling Green was shut down for hours as emergency crews responded to the multiple car crash.

Three cars were involved in the collision. Wilson was not driving but was a passenger in one of the cars that crashed head on into another car.

The driver of Wilson’s vehicle was Noel Cruz-Lemus, who has sustained severe injuries and is still in the hospital.

Other’s involved in the crash include Makayla Hernandez and Michael Richards whose car directly collided with the vehicle carrying Wilson and Cruz-Lemus. Both Hernandez and Richards were taken to The Medical Center at Bowling Green. The third involved vehicle was transporting Aaron Johnson and Zachary Pollard. Johnson and Pollard were not taken from the scene to a hospital.

Wilson was a teacher at Jennings Creek Elementary School, where she taught English as a second language.

Mental Health Professionals are helping staff and the young students cope with the loss of their teacher.

“For children this is really equivalent to a natural disaster. It is a sudden loss,” said Kim R. Wilson a Licensed Clinical Social Worker at Wilson Counseling, who is not employed by the school system.

The sooner children can receive crisis attention following a tragedy the better, according to mental health professionals.

Kim Wilson said, “…very quickly is the ideal, any crisis counseling needs to be right away.”

While Kim Wilson is not one of the mental health professionals helping at Jennings Creek, she does offer a special book for parents looking to help their children deal with loss, “…it’s awesome research that parents can use to help their kids work through those feelings of fear, or of sadness, anger, those kinds of things that we have to work through to get to the healing part,” said Wilson.

Wilson also taught at Caverna High School in Horse Cave, Ky. for two years. Students at Caverna will hold a vigil for Wilson at 5 p.m. on Tuesday in front of the school.