Fitch students mourn death of friend in crash

Photo

Alyssa Emrich

Austintown school officials are offering counseling to Alyssa Emrich’s classmates.

STAFF REPORT

AUSTINTOWN — A day after a 17-year-old Austintown Fitch High School student died in a car accident, friends began working to make sure her memory is not lost.

Alyssa R. Emrich, of Monaca Avenue, died Sunday after a collision with an ambulance, even though she wore a seat belt and slowed down for slippery road conditions.

Kayla Yousko, 17, said she’d known Emrich since preschool and described her as her “other half.”

“She was probably the only person in my life to show me the true meaning of friendship,” she said. “If I needed a shoulder to cry on, she was there. Honestly, that girl is my heart.”

Yousko said Emrich will be remembered for her ambition, among other things.

“She always had her dreams, and she knew how to work for them,” she said. “Her main goal in life was her speech. Every time you talked to her she’d be writing a speech. She had so many different ideas about her life, but I know she was going somewhere with her speech.”

Yousko said she has memories of her friend to help ease the pain.

“She had this quote that she always said, and I’ve kept it in my mind to keep myself calm,” she said. “She would say, ‘Relax. No one ever makes it out alive anyway.’”

Personally, Yousko said she will remember Emrich exactly as she’d want.

“She always considered herself a liberal and a feminist,” she said. “She always had a smile on her face, and she’d make her dreams come true no matter what it took.”

Shalena Marie Thomas, 17, said she’d known Emrich since they attended middle school at Frank Ohl Intermediate. Thomas said they were friends and played together in the band.

“She played clarinet, and I played flute,” she said. “This school year I would always see her in the skinny hallway going to third period. We would smile at each other or just wave.”

A MySpace page, www.myspace.com/alwaysrememberaemrich, has become an outlet for others mourning.

Jordan Wareham, 16, previously attended Fitch but now attends school in Canton. She remembers Emrich as one of the first friends she made at Fitch. Wareham dedicated the “MySpace” page to her memory.

“I just wanted to have a site to remember Alyssa. All the students and family and friends who did not have a chance to say goodbye can say goodbye in a comment or message,” she said.

The site, which has received dozens of hits, will hopefully provide closure to a lot of people, Wareham said.

Emrich’s family declined to comment Monday afternoon.

The Austintown school district began offering counseling at the high school about noon Monday, even though Fitch was closed for Presidents Day.

School officials also met personally with some of Emrich’s closest friends outside of the school. Counselors will also be available when classes resume today, said Doug Heuer, superintendent.

“We’re kind of using the student grapevine to let people know that if they want to stop by, counselors will be available,” he said of counseling.

“It’s a terribly tragic time, and we want to do everything we can to help them get through this,” Heuer said of Emrich’s family and friends. “Our sympathy goes out to the family. It’s just a terrible thing for them, and everyone else, to have to deal with.”

Emrich, who turned 17 late last month, was southbound on state Route 11 at about 6:50 p.m. Sunday, just south of the King-Graves intersection in Vienna Township, when her vehicle slid out of control into the median.

Sgt. Larry Firmi, of the Warren Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, said the nose of the vehicle slid left and the rest of the car followed until the car had traveled all the way across the median and into the path of a Johnston Township ambulance heading north on Route 11.

The ambulance hit the passenger side of Emrich’s car, then flipped onto its side.

The ambulance, with two rescue workers, was on its way back to Johnston Township after completing a call, Firmi said. The ambulance workers called 911, he said.

A witness estimated that Emrich was traveling about 45 mph on the 65-mph road. Snow had just started to fall in that area a short time earlier, leaving the road snow-covered and slippery, Firmi said. Numerous other accidents were reported farther south on state Route 11 Sunday evening.

Firmi said there was no indication that anything Emrich did, or that anything in the road, caused her vehicle to leave the roadway. So far, only slippery conditions explain the accident, Firmi said.

“She was obviously going fast enough to slide on the wet median, and she went all the way across,” he said. The area of the accident is flat and straight, he noted.

The ambulance driver, Jessica Gardener, 30, of Farmdale, and passenger John Williamson were taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center for treatment. Williamson was later discharged from the emergency room. Information about Gardener was not available.