A 12-year-old Barren County girl was killed and nine other adults and children hurt in a violent three vehicle wreck on Sunday morning, May 27 at the junction of Ky. 80 and Ky. 910 in the Fairview Community, according to State Trooper Logan Richardson.

The collision occurred around 10:30 a.m. when, according to state police, 71-year-old Lois Norfleet of Russell Springs was driving a 2004 Toyota car when she attempted to cross Ky. 80 into the Fairview Baptist Church parking lot from Ky. 910. In doing so, Norfleet pulled into the path of a westbound 1997 Dodge pickup operated by Haiden Cain, 19, of Russell Springs.

The pickup struck the Toyota and then continued traveling west and struck a 2003 Ford being driven by Christopher Yates, 37, of Glasgow.

Yates had been traveling east on 80 and was making a right turn onto 910 when hit.

All three drivers of the vehicles were wearing seat belts, according to police.

All other passengers were from Glasgow and in the Yates vehicle.

Leslie Yates, 32, was belted and did not receive medical attention. Jacob Yates, 16, Braxton Browning, 16, and 6-year-old Ethan Birge were belted and treated and released from Russell County Hospital.

Hannah Yates, 8, Ryan Yates, 12, and Elliott Birge, 6, were all belted and flown to UK Chandler Medical Center in Lexington via emergency helicopter.

Kinley Browning, 12, was belted and pronounced dead at the scene by Russell County Coroner Larry Skaggs.

Drugs and alcohol use are not suspected to be a contributing factor at this time, according to Trooper Richardson.

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The Russell County Hospital has been awarded a $21 million loan from the Rural Development office at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield.

This loan will be used to expand the current hospital facility, which opened in 1981, to accommodate and centralize a new emergency room, radiology, laboratory and surgery areas in order to provide more effective and efficient medical services for the more than 16,000 residents in our area.

“We’re excited we got approved,” said Chris McQueary, the chairman of the hospital’s board of directors. “It has been two years in the making. A lot of hard work has gone into this from people at the hospital, the board and previous board members during that time period.”

RCH CEO David Rasmussen said everyone on the medical staff was excited to hear the news late last Thursday.

“I think no one ever felt like this day would come,” Rasmussen said. He said with this step now complete the next round would be to complete the bid documents and concept drawings in the coming weeks.

This loan is backed by the office of Rural Development at USDA, Whitfield said.

“This is an opportunity to expand the hospital, expand services for the community and also upgrade our facility and hopefully allow more specialists and doctors to come to this area,” McQueary said. “Our next step is to, hopefully in the next month or so, finalize our drawings of the hospital.”

He said the board was about 99 percent certain of the drawings the way they are now but a few alterations may still need to be made.

“We just want to look over those one more time and see if any changes need to be made before we give our architects the go-ahead on how we want to proceed,” he said. I think everyone gives input and has the community’s well-being as their number one priority. It is a big undertaking for the hospital and it can be a little nerve-wracking and scary at times but we feel like we’re headed in the right direction and hopefully within the next month we’ll finalize the plans and get going here in the near future.”

Rasmussen said when he interviewed for the CEO position over a year ago he was told that an expansion could be possible.

“I’m glad now that I took the job,” he said. Rasmussen said he was excited to help bring an addition to the community.

“I told one of our visiting surgeons about the expansion the other day and he was pleased with the prospect of it,” he said.

The architects that have been hired to build the expansion is The Estopinal Group out of Louisville.