Teacher killed in tragic accident outside home in prank gone wrong
A high school teacher from the US has tragically died after a prank carried out outside his home by a group of teenagers went horribly wrong.
Jason Hughes stepped outside his home in Gainesville, Georgia late on Thursday (5 March) after spotting a group of five teens draping his trees with toilet paper - a prank which is extremely common in the US.
But when he rushed out to confront them, disaster struck.
As they quickly sped off in cars, Hughes tripped and fell into the road, which saw him get run over by one of the vehicles, driven by 18-year-old Jayden Ryan Wallace.
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Wallace and two other teens stopped immediately and tried to provide aid until the emergency responders arrived, but the 40-year-old would later die in hospital, leaving behind a grieving wife and two young sons.
Wallace was arrested at the scene and charged with first-degree vehicular homicide, reckless driving, criminal trespass, and littering on private property.
Four others - Elijah Tate Owens, Aiden Hucks, Ana Katherine Luque, and Ariana Cruz - all 18, were arrested and charged with criminal trespass and littering.
After a memorial service for the maths teacher was held on Saturday 7 March, his former students have been quick to praise him as both a teacher and a human being.
'He always just tried to be the most supportive he could'
"If I ever had problems, I could always run and call to him, like if I have the financial questions, or if I just had some personal issues going on,' Shayden Maynor, one of Hughes' former students, told 11 Alive.
Olivia Williams, a sophomore at the school, told Atalanta News First: "He always tried to make conversations with students, and he always just tried to be the most supportive he could.
"He would show up to events that he didn’t even know anything about just to be supportive, and that’s going to be a really big thing that’s going to be missed."
Williams confirmed that Hughes' wife also works at the same school as a geometry teacher, and that the students would do their best to show her the support she will need after losing her husband in such avoidable and awful circumstances.
"I really just want her to know that there’s so many people that love and care about them, and they’re not alone in this and that if they ever need a shoulder to cry on, there is always going to be somebody to turn to," she added.
'Always smiling, always ready with a joke'
Tributes to the teacher have also been pouring in on Facebook, with several friends and former students all weighing in with their memories of the father-of-two.
"Some people walk into a room and immediately make it better. Jason was one of those people," one said.
And another posted: "Always smiling, always ready with a joke, and always making everyone around him feel welcome.
"He had a way of turning an ordinary moment into something memorable just by being himself."
James Moorhouse