INDReporter

Fund established to aid Lafayette teacher

by Walter Pierce

French Immersion teacher Karine Ruatta is in a coma in a hospital in Guadalajara, Mexico, following an automobile accident on a remote road two hours outside the Pacific-coast resort city.

Myrtle Place Elementary French Immersion teacher Karine Ruatta
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[Update: A group of LPSS teachers gathered Monday and raised money to cover Karine Ruatta's rent and utilities while she recovers from injuries sustained in a weekend car wreck in Mexico. They also established a Go Fund Me campaign to raise the funds needed to have Ruatta transferred back to Louisiana for continuing medical care and recovery. That campaign, "Help Karine and Robin," can be accessed here.]

A French Immersion teacher from Lafayette Parish is in a coma in a hospital in Guadalajara, Mexico, following an automobile accident on a remote road two hours outside the Pacific-coast resort city, according to a director of the school language program here.

Few details are known about the crash that injured Karine Ruatta, a French national who has taught at Myrtle Place Elementary for the last seven years and who taught French in Assumption Parish before that, according to Nicole Boudreaux, world language specialist with the Lafayette Parish School System. Boudreaux says Ruatta was on vacation with her teenage son, Robin, when the accident occurred. Robin wasn’t injured in the accident and is said to be staying at the home of a French physician who is caring for Ruatta in Guadalajara.

“She is the best teacher you will ever meet,” Boudreaux says of Ruatta, estimated to be in her late 30s.

Ruatta, according to Boudreaux, is in critical but stable condition at “the best hospital in Mexico,” and the physician caring for her tells Boudreaux that despite moderate brain swelling and being comatose for 48 hours or so, there is optimism that Ruatta will fully recover.