A Missouri teen died after being struck by a truck responding to an emergency call last weekend, following her fall off the SUV she was dancing on top of.
On Saturday night, 18-year-old Nyla Simmons was headed home from a friend’s prom send-off party when she began dancing on the roof of a Cadillac Escalade as it rolled through the streets of St. Louis, sources said to KMOV.
At a red light, the Escalade stopped, yet Simmons fell off once the vehicle turned left.
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Only a few seconds later, she got run over by a fire truck responding to a call and died, said the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
The department added that the truck had its siren and lights on, and were surprised to see an unfortunate event like that take place.
“We aren’t ever going to be the same after this … I’m still in shock right now,” her parents, Everett and Letrice Simmons told KMOV.
“We just wanted the best for Nyla, the incident is just tragic the way she died but that’s what hurts the most, the way she died. Nyla was out having fun, that’s what she liked: having fun, hanging out with her friends,” Letrice said.
Reports indicate that the Missouri teen struck by a truck had been riding in a car full of her friends of similar age.
“We’ve all been young before, we all have done some type of thing where it could have ended up bad for us,” her broken father said to the station.
“Don’t get on top of a car, ya’ll, just don’t get on top, just be safe,” Simmon’s mother warned.
Simmons was the youngest of five children who attended Parkway North High School and graduated from Fern Ridge High School last year.
The Missouri teen was expected to start cosmetology school two days after she died following the truck accident, family members told KMOV.
The Parkway step team Simmons danced on called her a “force of talent” and a “light that shined brightly both on and off the stage,” Fox2 Now reported.
“Nyla was going to be an entrepreneur, Nyla was going to be great in this world, and it’s tragic that she’s not here,” her father said to the station.
