An LSU senior who planned to join the Army and treat soldiers with PTSD died early Sunday after authorities said she ran into a truck on the side of Interstate 12 in Baton Rouge.
Shayna Wilcox, 22, was driving west on I-12 around 2:15 a.m. when she hit a Baton Rouge fire apparatus that had been responding to a semitractor-trailer stopped along the shoulder near Drusilla Lane, Baton Rouge police said. The apparatus was stopped in the right lane with its lights on.
The collision with the fire apparatus caused her to lose control of her car and strike the tanker truck. She suffered fatal injuries and died at the scene.
Wilcox was a senior studying psychology at LSU from out of state.
She was also a cadet in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, receiving awards over the years for her work.
Wilcox wrote on her blog that she aspired to join the U.S. Army to become a social worker treating soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental illnesses.
“I understand that everyone goes through their own crises, whether it is school, work, or home,” she wrote in a Sept. 25 post. “My goal is to uplift that person who may be struggling with issues they cannot cope with alone.”
Four other LSU students have died in tragic circumstances during the fall semester, with all of the earlier deaths happening in September.
One student was fatally shot while working as a gas station clerk; another was killed near campus after being struck by a car; one suffered a fatal head injury in a skateboarding accident and another died from a rare brain infection.
President F. King Alexander said sat the time he was “shocked and saddened” by their deaths.
Investigators on Sunday were still reviewing what led to the crash, Baton Rouge Police Spokesman Sgt. Don Coppola Jr. said.
He said the Volvo semitrailer had pulled to the outside shoulder after hitting debris that punctured the truck’s diesel tank before Wilcox hit it.
Investigators are checking whether early morning fog or other factors may have played a role in the wreck. No one else was injured, Coppola said.
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