A Birthday Turned Into Heartbreak
On what should have been a day of celebration, March 5, 2023, 35-year-old William Pettry—a firefighter with the Coal River Volunteer Fire Department in Raleigh County, West Virginia—experienced the unimaginable. Responding to a head-on collision on Coal River Road in Arnett, he discovered that the victims were his own wife, Sara Pettry, and his three-year-old daughter, Brooklyn.

Sara Pettry, 30, and Brooklyn Pettry, 3
Just moments before the crash, Sara and her three daughters, ages 3, 8, and 11, had stopped by the fire station to visit William. After leaving, they made it less than a mile down the road before the tragic collision occurred.
William’s personal loss struck the entire first responder community, where the pain of the job is rarely this close to home.
“We’re supposed to be professional. We’re supposed to do a job,” said Will Davis, Public Information Officer for the Beaver Volunteer Fire Department. “But none of us ever want to imagine that the scene we roll up on involves our family.”
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