Yahoo News Sabrina the Teenage Witch star helped children to safety during Nashville shooting
Melissa Joan Hart, the star of hit children’s television show Sabrina the Teenage Witch, helped children from the Nashville school shooting flee to safety.
On Monday, Audrey Hale, 28, shot dead three students and three staff at a private Christian primary school after storming in armed with two assault-style weapons and a shotgun.
Speaking in an emotional video posted on her Instagram, Hart, 46, said that her children go to another school right next to the one where the attack took place.
She said: "My husband and I were on our way to school for conferences.
"Luckily, our kids weren't in today and we helped a class of kindergartners across a busy highway that were climbing out of the woods, that were trying to escape a shooter situation at their school.
"So we helped all these tiny little kids cross the road and get their teachers over there and we helped a mom reunite with her children."
Hart said that her family had moved from Connecticut, where their school was a "little ways down" from Sandy Hook, explaining that it was their second experience of a school shooting with their children being in close proximity.
"Luckily, we are all OK," she said.
At the end of the video, in which she appeared visibly emotional, she added: "I just ... I don't know what to say. Enough is enough. Just pray, pray for the families."
Hale's victims were nine-year-old students Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney; Katherine Koonce, the school’s head teacher, 60; Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher; and Mike Hill, 61, a custodian.
Koonce, head of The Covenant School, was hailed a hero after reportedly heading "straight for the shooter".
Heartbreaking from @MelissaJoanHart who lives near Nashville shooting: “My husband & I were on the way to school for conferences & we helped a class of kindergarteners across a busy highway. They were climbing out of woods. They were trying to escape the shooter at their school.” pic.twitter.com/hQNo7txJIR
— Marisa Kabas (@MarisaKabas) March 29, 2023
Ms Koonce, 60, was in the middle of a Zoom call when the gunshots rang out at the school, according to Nashville City Councilman Russ Pulley.
She "immediately ended the call, got up, and headed straight for the shooter”, Mr Pulley told Fox News.
Hart is best known for her role playing Sabrina Spellman in the hit television show Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
In the show, which ran from 1996 to 2003, Sabrina discovers aged 16 that she is a witch and the show details her life through school and university.
Prior to that, Hart played the role of Clarissa in the Nickelodeon show Clarissa Explains It All.
