Reedsburg girl killed by pickup truck avoiding school bus identified; feds investigating

“Absolute heartbreak,” Brian Gurney, Evelyn’s father, said of the family’s finding out about the crash last week. “Just absolutely heartbreaking to know that she’s not going to be with us anymore.”

An online fundraiser had raised more than $77,000 for the family from more than 1,100 donations as of Monday. And the union representing paramedics and firefighters in Baraboo, where the elder Gurney is a paramedic, is selling stickers with Evelyn’s initials and the number 42 — the jersey Evelyn wore for her youth girls hockey team — with two crossing hockey sticks for $5.

Gurney said the family is overwhelmed by the amount of community support they’ve received.

“It’s not something anyone would wish upon anybody, but the way the community has come together, stepped up, and showed how they feel,” Gurney said. “It shows what sort of an impact Evelyn has made to so many.”

Support has poured in from throughout Wisconsin, Minneapolis and northern Illinois, he said.

“It’s amazing how far-reaching one person can actually get and it also shows what kind of community the hockey families are,” Gurney said.

The Gofundme page for Evelyn initially set a goal of $1,000 but quickly blew past that.

“She was the sweetest, most kind person you would ever meet,” wrote Reedsburg resident Ellie Vielhuber and four other friends who set up the fundraiser.

Evelyn was waiting for a school bus when the crash occurred just before 7:30 a.m. on Highway 23/33 near Northwoods Drive, according to the Sauk County Sheriff’s Office.

The bus was stopped in the westbound lane when a westbound Ford pickup truck failed to slow down in time and swerved to avoid striking the bus, the Sheriff’s Office said. The truck sideswiped the bus on the rear right side, continuing along a driveway on the north side of the highway and striking Evelyn, investigators said. The truck came to a stop in a ditch.

The National Transportation Safety Board on Monday said it was helping the Sheriff’s Office with its investigation.

Evelyn’s death was “a truly devastating time for our entire community and it will have far reaching effects,” Reedsburg School District Superintendent Roger Rindo said in a statement Friday. Weekend extracurricular activities in the district were canceled.

No students on the bus were injured, according to authorities. The truck driver, who sustained minor injuries, has not yet been identified by authorities. A small makeshift memorial was set up at the site of the crash.

“We’re sorry that he’s also having to go through the grief he is,” said Gurney regarding the Ford F-150 driver. “We hope that he can try to grow from this and not let it ultimately affect him for the rest of his life.”

No information has been released regarding any services for Evelyn.