In the wake of Colin Brown’s passing, an outpouring of online tributes from his school, hockey team, and other people who knew him has ensued. Yesterday, November 27, a media outlet reported the death of a 16-year-old hockey player named Colin Brown. According to First Alert 4, Brown passed away days after he was shot on Interstate 55 in St. Louis, Missouri. On Saturday, November 23, the late teen had been riding in a car with his dad after a hockey game at the Affton Ice Rink. At approximately 10:30 p.m. on the interstate near Loughborough and Bates, the shooting took place. Police expressed their belief that Brown was hit by a stray bullet.
Following the shooting, Brown’s father drove to Broadway and Walnut in St. Louis, and the police were called. A 20-year-old woman from St. Charles County named Lily Paniucki, who was in downtown St. Louis for a friend’s 21st birthday bash, said she and another friend had heard Brown’s dad crying out for help. The group of pals had rented a party bus to bar-hop downtown. At one point, Paniucki and the friend (who heard the shouting), decided to stay on the bus while their other friends went inside Ballpark Village to celebrate.
“On our way back from a gas station we had stopped at a light and we heard somebody screaming for help,” mentioned Paniucki. When the girls had asked the driver, who had stopped at the intersection of South Broadway and Walnut.
where the sounds were coming from, Paniucki said he pointed to a man standing outside his car at the intersection. The girls then informed the driver that they wanted to get off the bus to get a closer look at what was happening. “I jumped out and we came up to this guy standing outside the passenger seat and another guy sitting in the passenger seat and he was holding his neck and he said, ‘my [sic] son has just been shot,'” explained Paniucki. After Paniucki, who graduated from Respond Right EMS Academy in St. Peters a month ago, told Brown’s dad that she was an EMT, she stepped in to assist. “I could see he was applying pressure to a wound in the front of his neck. I couldn’t find a pulse so I knew we needed to start CPR immediately,” disclosed Paniucki.
Together, with the help of her friend and Brown’s father, the trio lifted Brown out of the passenger seat and laid him down on the sidewalk, where she began administering CPR. Paniucki also shared that even though Brown’s dad, naturally, was panicked and breathless, he was able “to give his son breaths” along with her compressions. The young EMT had been administering CPR for around 10 minutes before a bystander approached them to offer assistance. The two continued to administer CPR for another 10 minutes until an ambulance arrived.
911 dispatch calls indicate that at 10:36 p.m., a 911 call was made. At 10:46 p.m., police arrived and deemed the scene secure. Four minutes later (10:50 p.m.), the first fire truck arrived, and then the ambulance at 10:52 p.m. Hearing somebody scream for help like that, there was no time to sit and worry or second guess myself. I kicked right into action and it all just came to me,” reflected Paniucki on the situation. At that time, Brown remained in the hospital, fighting to survive. Sadly, the young hockey player was pronounced dead on Wednesday, November 27. A spokesperson for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department announced his death in a press conference in the afternoon on that same day.