Katelynn Strate, seven months pregnant, was shot in the head during a road rage attack near New Orleans and she is on a life-support machine with her baby delivered early with a C-section
A baby girl was born by emergency C-section after her teen mother was left fighting for her life when she was shot in the head in a road rage incident.
Katelynn Strate, who was seven months pregnant, was rushed to a hospital in Hammond, north of New Orleans, where the baby was delivered early, 30 minutes after the shooting on Sunday. The 17-year-old had been a passenger in a car when she was struck in the head by a bullet fired by a driver in a silver pick-up truck, the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office said.
Ms Strate is now on a life support machine and a family friend said doctors do not expect her to recover. Her baby, born weighing 3lb 11, is “doing well” in a neonatal intensive care unit but tragically the mum is expected to have her life support machine switched off.
“[Her] mother is devastated,” family friend Katie Cancienne told the Nola.com. “She just lost her baby, and now she’s a grandmother.”
Attorney General Liz Murrill posted on X: “This is terrible. This poor infant is fighting for their life in the NICU while his or her mother is on life support. All because of road rage? There is no excuse.”
Law enforcement said the confrontation – which happened around 9am Sunday in Ponchatoula, about 50 miles north of New Orleans – involved an SUV the teen was riding in and the silver truck driven by Barry West, 54. Police said the drivers of both vehicles were tailgating and “brake-checking” each other.
Authorities said West shot one round into the SUV when it was in front of his vehicle. Police said he believed the occupants of the SUV had shot at him first, but evidence showed no shots were fired from the SUV and no weapon was found inside, the sheriff’s office said.
West was charged with four counts of attempted second-degree murder, illegal use of a weapon and obstruction of justice. “This is a senseless tragedy on Sunday morning with no logical reason for this family to be experiencing this heartbreak right now,” said Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Gerald Sticker.
Ms Cancienne said: “These kids were just driving on their way to the interstate and drove past the wrong guy.” Friends also told how much Katelynn was looking forward to becoming a mum “They just had a dynamic where you could tell there was genuine love there,” Ms Cancienne said. “The world’s not going to be the same kind of place without her.”