What are the odds that Melissa Joan Hart had a first grader at Sandy Hook and in this shooting happened to be driving by with her husband and saw children from this Covenant school in Nashville where she now lives running from the woods?
This is the transcript from a news segment interview done with Melissa.
What are the odds that Melissa Joan Hart had a first grader at Sandy Hook and in this shooting happened to be driving by with her husband and saw children from this Covenant school running from the woods?
At 14 seconds mentions living in Connecticut as well.
Melissa states, "ran to get him from school, I think he was in lock down, but I don't recall so. . .uhm, now we move to Nashville 2 1/2 years ago and uhm, we were driving to our kid's school and we pass Covenant every day.
He wasn't in session yesterday, it was conference day. We were going just to meet with his teacher.
So my husband and I were together and we see a helicopter down the road and we were what?
What is that helicopter sitting there for?
And we were redirected by just one cop car, like you can't go straight, you gotta turn.
So we turn and the car in front of us stops and I see, I'll never forget this, of a woman coming out of the woods onto this five lane highway.
And there's this calm expression on her face, yet she is so stoic and all of a sudden all of these little children just start crossing the street. She stops the traffic, she gets the children out. I get out of the car and I go to try to help her lifting children, like pushing past shrubbery.
And one little kid says to me, 'what's going on?'
And, We're just going to cross the street right now."
And I was just praying the child didn't hear the fear in my voice, because it's all just sort of coming together what's going on.
There was a helicopter, there's no cops around, there's just a school full of children coming through the woods.
And we got across the street as fast as we could.
The teacher's didn't want to make eye contact.
I think it's cause they were, trying not to break down, they're trying to hold it together for these children.
And so I wasn't really sure how to help.
And then I decided to go over to the children and one of the was crying and I said, 'You're okay, you're okay.'
And another little girl said, 'I like your pink shirt.'
And I said, 'I like your shirt too!'
And the teacher kind of ushered them away, and they went down. . .
And this woman that was helping me with the children, uhm, sat down next to me and goes, 'my children are in that school.'
So I decided to stay with her and pray with her and another mom came up and prayed with her.
My husband ran to. . .now at this point about 200 police officers, cars, unmarked cars, sirens everywhere.
It was like loud, it was deafening.
And uhm, my husband went to one of the cops and said, 'this woman, her children are in there what does she do?'
And we figured out we should get her to the fire station, so my husband drove her in her car to the fire station.
I went back to our car, which was parked the other direction.
As I'm sitting there wondering, what's going on?
Like it seems like it's a shooter situation, but I don't want to put those words together yet
and uhm, I'm sitting there and four ambulances go by me and that's when I realized this is what is happening, this is what is going on.
When I was praying with that mom on the hill we were saying, "there were some shots that were heard, but we don't know what that was. We don't know if that was in the school, we don't know anything.
Right now we're just praying that everything is okay.
And to see those ambulances go by it was pretty clear that there were a lot of injuries if not deaths.
Reporter states,
"It's remarkable you're going through this Melissa, having lived near Sandy Hook!"
And so this seems to be a recurring theme, that people across this country are getting closer and closer to their own experiences with school shootings.
And may be tangentially as close as one degree away."
There was something else that you did.
You helped to reunite a child with the child's parents.
What happened?
Melissa
That was the woman sitting next to me on this hill.
We were up on this hill side, I can't even describe it. . .it was just the side of the highway really.
And there was a fence, so we couldn't get through, and the children were having to like single file having to go along the fence line.
And they went in one direction, when the mom behind me said, "my children are in there."
And that's when we were. . . I just prayed with her until my husband was able to help her down the hill.
I realized she was pregnant.
And I'm thinking, of course now looking back I'm like. . .
in 2012, I had just given birth to my third child and I had two kids in school.
And uhm, and I'm that mom about a decade before.
I just felt for this woman, so my husband was able to bring her to the fire station.
And as soon as she walked in, apparently her children came into the back door.
So she was reunited with her children uhm and,
I was so glad to know that cause I don't know her name, I don't know the children from that kindergarten, and I have not
watched the news, so just seeing what you uhm, you should us the body cam video.
I had not watched that, and just wondering what classroom these kindergartners came out of.
And how they got out, how their teachers were so brave to get them out and to. . .
I'll never forget the look on that teacher's face as she crosses the street and doesn't really look.
Because what's in front of her is less dangerous than what is behind her.
She just has to get her little babies to the other side.
And it was so traumatic. . .and I, I was just a bystander.
I'm just there trying to help in any way I can, but to know that there are parents last night, that went home without their children or parents that went home last night and had to explain things to their children that they saw, that they experienced that they heard. . .
those first responders, it is just unfathomable, the whole thing, it's just, it's too much.
Actually my son, I said to my 17 year old last night, I hugged him and I said, "I'm sorry that this is the second time that you've been in a lockdown.
And he said, actually mom, it's the third.
And I forgot at his _____ schools, there was a shooting at the temple next door.
So I forgot about that one, and he reminded me.
He was very aware of that.
Why were those children at the Fire station that belonged to the woman Melissa was speaking to, but the other children were bussed to another church? Just asking.
According to NBC,
How Google prioritizes
The vid being played all over.
4 am talking points?
You decide!
https://www.wilx.com/video/2023/03/29/melissa-joan-hart-says-she-helped-kids-get-safety-after-nashville-school-shooting/
According to the New York Post,
Photos of the heartbreaking formation evoked the Sandy Hook slayings, where gunman Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and six staffers before turning the gun on himself.
The December 2012 rampage in Newtown, Connecticut became the deadliest school shooting in the nation’s history.
Jozen Reodica, a staffer at Shearwater Health, took cellphone video of the traumatized tots being shepherded to safety.
AP photos
#NashvilleSchoolShooting, #MelissaJoanHart, #CovenantSchool, PresbyterianChurchNashville, #MarkWilkerson, #AudreyHale, #SchoolShootings, #SandyHook, #ConnecticutSchoolShooting
Sources
Melissa Joan Hart helped Nashville kindergartners escape school shooting | Banfield
https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/us-celebrity-news/melissa-joan-hart-tearfully-tells-29577543
https://www.courant.com/2023/03/28/alex-joness-firm-wins-key-bankruptcy-ruling-in-sandy-hook-case/
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