STX Patriot 🎇🩴🏈🎰🎸🎶🧱🏹♐🌎🏜️🏞️🧭

This is heartbreaking 💔🙏🌹 They met in sixth grade and never really left each other’s side. By freshman year of high school the friendship had become a relationship. They got engaged in 2025 and set a wedding date for March 2028. On the early morning of October 18, 2026, Leah Fonte and Shane Hirstius, both 21, were walking along the shoulder of Nicholson Drive in Baton Rouge after a night out near the LSU campus. Around 2:40 a.m., a driver left the roadway and struck them both. Leah died at the scene. Shane was taken to a hospital, where he later died from his injuries. Their families said he had tried to protect her. Leah was a senior at Louisiana State University studying biological sciences on the pre-dental track. She had traveled to Panama to volunteer with dental care and was preparing for a career as a dentist. Shane served as a firefighter and operator with the Third District Volunteer Fire Department in River Ridge. He had played baseball at Archbishop Rummel High School and later at Delgado Community College; his coach remembered him as the kid who was always happy. His father later said Shane’s instinct was always to run toward danger. Both families described two people who put others first. Leah’s mother said there was never a selfish bone in either of them. After the crash, a 20-year-old woman was arrested and charged with multiple counts, including vehicular homicide; impaired driving is alleged. The couple had chosen to walk rather than drive that night. Shane’s father has held onto one thought since the call came. He takes comfort knowing that, whether here or in heaven, Shane is finally with the person he had wanted beside him for the rest of his life. Two people who found each other at eleven were gone the same night at twenty-one, roughly seventeen months before the wedding they had already planned. Prayers for the families.🙏🙏🙏