Melissa Joan Hart: I helped kids trying to ‘escape’ from Nashville shooting
Melissa Joan Hart lent a helping hand to a group of small children and teachers who were fleeing the tragic Nashville shooting earlier this week.
The “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” alum, 46, shared in an Instagram video posted Tuesday that she and her husband, Mark Wilkerson, were on their way to a conference at their kids’ school – which was not where the incident occurred but close by – when they ran into the victims.
“We helped a class of kindergarteners across a busy highway that were climbing out of the woods, that were trying to escape the shooter situation at their school,” Hart said, while getting emotional.
“So, we helped all of these tiny little kids cross the road and get their teachers over there and we helped a mom reunite with her children.”
“I don’t know what to say anymore,” the “Clarissa Explains It All” alum added. “Enough is enough.”
She then encouraged her followers to “pray for the families” and also wrote in her caption, “Prayers today, Action tomorrow. This was too raw to post yesterday but wanted you to hear this story.”
Hart and Wilkerson, also 46, share three sons: Mason, 17, Braden, 15, and Tucker, 10.
Hart said her boys were “luckily” not in school when the shooting occurred on Monday but said this is the second time their family has been in “close proximity” of a national tragedy.
“We moved here from Connecticut, where we were in a school a little ways down from Sandy Hook, so this is our second experience with a school shooting with our kids being in close proximity,” the mom of three said.
Hart later spoke in more detail about her experience on her podcast, “What Women Binge,” Wednesday, noting she will “never forget” the look on one of the teachers’ faces.
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“The look on her face just changed my life,” she said.
Hart then recalled a confused little girl coming out of the woods and asking her, “What’s going on?” as the actress tried to help her.
“I was like, ‘We’re just going to cross the road,’ and she doesn’t know me so she doesn’t know the fear in my voice but it’s very quickly dawning on me that this is not a fire drill … something is going on really bad, something is worse behind them.”
Hart said eventually about 200 police cars arrived, adding that she spent some time comforting a mom whose kids she believed were still inside the school.
“I’ll never forget every moment of it,” the “Drive Me Crazy” star concluded.
Seven people total died in the shooting at the Covenant School, including three slain students, Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all 9 years old, staff members Cynthia Peak and Mike Hill, both 61, and school head Katherine Koonce, 60, and the shooter, who was identified as Audrey Hale.
