Heartbreaking

Tuesday’s Kentucky school shooting was the 11th school shooting since January 1st. That is appalling. It is a nightmare. It is a disgusting and abject failure. A permanent stain on our humanity.

The parents of a Kentucky teenager who was fatally shot in a mass shooting at her high school this week said their daughter called them as the violent scene unfolded in the background.

Bailey Holt, 15, was one of two students killed at Marshall County High School in western Kentucky on Tuesday after a classmate allegedly opened fire, killing them both and injuring at least 18 others, authorities said.

“She called me and all I could hear was voices, chaos in the background,” Bailey’s mother, Secret Holt, told ABC affiliate WKRN on Wednesday. “She couldn’t say anything and I tried to call her name over and over and over and she never responded.”

“We rushed to the high school, and they wouldn’t let us get through,” she said.

Secret Holt said she knew something was wrong when she didn’t see her daughter on any of the buses that were used to transport the surviving students to a nearby school.

“We waited and waited for her to get off the buses and she never did,” Secret Holt said. “The principal at North Marshal came and got me, and took us outside and we got in a cop car and they took us to the fire department and told us what had happened.”

She described Bailey, a sophomore, as a sweet child who loved to help others.

“Even though she was 15, she had already decided her career was going to be a labor and delivery nurse,” Secret Holt said. “She helped others … she was just so kind-hearted and the most amazing kid anybody could ever ask for. Her smile could light up the room.”