The Simmons Family
Dawn & Ray Simmons
Ren
Katie
Shea
Rhett
Carly
Kyle
Our Story
On December 17th, Dawn Simmons and her three youngest children, Lindy (20), Christopher (17), Kamryn (15), and Christopher’s girlfriend, Marissa, traveled to Monroe, Louisiana for Christopher’s basketball game. He played for Acadiana Christian School and for the first time in their history, they were undefeated. On the way home, they were traveling south on interstate 49. John C. Lundy, known as Chris Lundy, decided to get behind the wheel intoxicated. He was traveling northbound in the southbound lanes at 80-90 mph when he plowed head-on into the family’s car at 9:01 pm.
Katie’s recount: My dad called me at 10:29pm. I was at a Christmas party and told me “Mom got in a wreck. It’s not looking good, but she’s stable”. My husband, Errik, & I rushed to the hospital. I was frantically crying, thinking my mom was severely hurt, but absolutely not thinking anything worse. I knew my siblings were with her, but if Mom is ok, they should also be ok. They are young and resilient. When we arrived to Lafayette General Medical Center, my brother, Shea and Dad were frantic as they just learned from Facebook that the crash involved two fatalities. I was in complete denial and knew both fatalities had to be in the other car. There is no way that God would take one of my little siblings from us. As we learned the other car involved only had one occupant, I hoped that someone is getting their information twisted and it could not be true. Mom arrived very confused with a bleeding spleen, bilateral dissected carotid arteries, multiple broken ribs, a broken wrist/finger, a punctured lung and two severely broken legs. Marissa had a broken femur, abdominal bruising, a broken hand and many other injuries, including severe whip lash.
They were stable and that gave us some relief to be able to try and locate my siblings. The state trooper called my dad back to say that the “young blonde that was driving” did not survive as well as the driver of the other car, and that he thinks some of the kids may be at Opelousas General. We all lost it, but I still did not accept this as fact. None of my siblings were at LGMC, where my mom was, and we called every hospital we could think of to locate them. What we didn’t realize was, the hospitals that had taken them in did not know who they were, therefore their names were not showing up. My mother-in-law, husband and I flew to Opelousas and I decided to call again, just incase. The operator informed me that they didn’t have anyone by their names, but they did have “someone from a car accident if I wanted to come and identify them.” I asked what she meant by identify, because certainly she didn’t mean identify a body. I expected to walk in to one of my siblings in the hospital bed, bruised and banged up, but alive. When the nurse met us, he asked me to describe my sister and informed me that the young female there had expired. We eventually were led to the room where they unzipped my sweet baby sister’s body bag and revealed to me her perfect face. Yes, that’s Kamryn. I immediately called my dad to let him know it wasn’t Lindy, as we had thought. It was the baby, it was our baby, Kamryn. We asked the nurse to please help us locate my other two siblings, since now they are the ones in critical condition that we need to get to as soon as possible. He left and returned in a few minutes to let me know that there was a young gentleman at Bunkie General. I let out a sign of relief as I stated okay, that’s my baby brother, at least he’s ok. Well, I know he’s not ok, but at least he’s alive. Where is my sister? The world stopped turning when he shook his head no. No? My baby brother isn’t alive? There are no words to explain that moment. He then proceeded to tell me the young blonde who was driving was still at the scene because they were unable to extract her from the vehicle. And just like that, we went from one sibling didn’t make it, to all three of them not making it. He informed me that I needed to head to Bunkie General to identify my baby brother so that he could be given a name and able to follow all other procedures after tragedies like this. I drove, what seemed like 97 million hours to Bunkie. I did not feel like I was in control of my body as I walked into the third hospital of the night. When the nurse unlocked the door and I saw his hair, I knew it was him. My sweet, innocent, perfect baby brother who had his entire life ahead of him, was laying there, lifeless. He still had the breathing tube in his mouth. I could see his little teeth resting on it. His nose was purple. I couldn’t stay to see him much longer, but it was him. I have never, in my life, experienced more pain than in that moment. Everyone at the hospital was so kind, but nothing took away the pain that was brewing in my heart. The three babies of the family are gone. My dad lost his three youngest children and is with my mom in ICU. My mom is in ICU without a clue as to what happened. The absolute hardest part of this entire experience, next to losing my siblings, is knowing that my mom will be informed of this whenever she awakens. It is absolutely gut wrenching for me to share this and I am passionately sharing in hopes of raising awareness of how devastating getting behind the wheel intoxicated can be. Our lives our shattered. My parents lived for us. Everything they did in life was for the benefit of their children. We went from our “big family of 9 kids” to 6 kids in the blink of an eye. I don’t know how we will ever move on or recover from this.