West-Oak High School grieving after death of Student

Extra counselors are assisting at West-Oak High School today after the tragic loss of a student Thursday afternoon, explains Principal Kurt Kreuzberger. “Not only do we have our counselors here, the district has a Grief Support Team that they send whenever there are tragedies. Counselors from other schools, clergy, school psychologists, so there were several different people here helping both the students and teachers.” After collapsing at school from cardiac arrest, 18-year-old Sierra Jaid Sims of Westminster died at Oconee Memorial Hospital. Kreuzberger describes the incident. “Sierra collapsed in a classroom. I was extremely proud of my staff in how they handled that situation, very proud of the teacher. Our nurse took over and took care of any medical issues quickly. We had other support people come and contact 911. EMS arrived quickly and we helped Sierra get onto the stretcher and into the ambulance. Then they took it from there.” The principal said Sims was well know and heavily involved at the school. “Sierra was a well known, very loved student. She was involved in so many things here at the school. She was very involved in athletics, she was involved in drama, and in fact, she was going to have one of the lead roles in our upcoming play “Alice in Wonderland”. She was involved with working with a lot of our special education students and in chorus. So, she was just in so many different facets of the school and had so many friends. It is always tragic any time something like this happens.” Students learned of her untimely passing before they dismissed from school on Thursday, concludes Kreuzberger. “I came back to the school after being down at the hospital. We finished the day with an assembly where I brought all of the students into the auditorium. I wanted them all to hear the news from me. I wanted them to hear the news before they went home and I wanted them to have some time where they could grieve together as a school and be with each other. The staff was down there. It was tragic and a shock because very few people really knew anything about what was going on.” An autopsy is planned for today to determine exact cause of death.