MOUNDS, Okla. — A trip to Beta Club Nationals turned scary when a car carrying Liberty High School students was involved in a serious wreck near Savannah, Georgia.
On the evening of June 21, students on the trip returned home to the loving arms of their families.
The buses rolled into a lot of fanfare, but before they got back to Oklahoma, the students had to witness a much scarier scene. The wreck injured several students, one was life-flighted to the hospital.
Melvin Vilallta was in the car just ahead of the wreck.
“It was scary,” Vilallta said “I didn’t know what to do. When I saw it, I backed up and I didn’t really do much, but it was scary.”
It might have been even scarier for the parents more than 800 miles away, like Jennifer Craighead. Her daughter, Patricia, lost vision in one eye and had some gnarly cuts on her face.
“It felt like days before I could breathe,” Craighead said of the days following the wreck.
Jennifer offered to get her daughter in Georgia, but she refused. Patricia insisted on competing at nationals. They embraced for the first time since the wreck at a homecoming celebration orchestrated by the school district.
Kya Wolff was in the car with Patricia and remembers the moment the crash happened.
“I got knocked out,” Wolff said, “I just saw all the glass shatter into my eyes.”
Wolff was hospitalized but is glad to be back home in Oklahoma. The students made the most of their trip to Georgia, but are relieved to be back in Green Country.
“I’m glad to be home. I’ll be glad to see my parents again. I really missed them,” Vilallta said.
The students will go their separate ways for the rest of Summer and hope to have the same success in the upcoming school year.
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