Keene State mourns 18-year-old women’s soccer player, killed in crash with logging truck
“She brightened up every room she walked into with the constant smile she had on her face, and always gave 100% in everything she did.”
Friends and loved ones are mourning the death of Kelsey Mayer, an 18-year-old student-athlete at Keene State College who died from injuries sustained in a crash with a logging truck in New Hampshire last week.
Mayer was a freshman who played on the women’s soccer team, according to a statement from the school.
“Kelsey had the ability to make everyone laugh both on and off of the field,” the athletics department wrote in a statement on Sunday. “She brightened up every room she walked into with the constant smile she had on her face, and always gave 100% in everything she did.”
According to New Hampshire State Police, troopers responded to the March 23 crash on Route 9 in Stoddard around 4:45 a.m. The initial investigation indicated that Mayer, a resident of Concord, was driving westbound on Route 9 with a passenger, 19-year-old Allison Yanski of Concord, when her car crashed into the logging truck.
The tractor-trailer was pulling into a nearby logging site when it was hit by Mayer’s car, according to police.
Both Yanski and Mayer had to be extricated from the car by first responders. Yanski was taken to an area hospital with serious but nonlife-threatening injuries, while Mayer was hospitalized in critical condition after the crash.
Mayer’s family announced her passing on a GoFundMe page that was started to defray the costs of her medical care.
“In true Kelsey fashion she was a registered organ donor,” the page reads. “All of her organs are going to people around the country saving so many lives and blessing so many families from feeling the pain of losing their loved one. Her love of life will live on in every one of these people. This is exactly the gift Kelsey would have hoped for.”