United States (North Carolina) - The state Highway Patrol has charged a Wake County school bus driver with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle in connection with a crash Dec.4 that killed a Raleigh firefighter. The Highway Patrol charged Sheila Hall, 52, of 300 King Arthur Trail in Garner over the weekend, spokesman Sgt. Joe Gordon said.

Hall had been suspended with pay since the accident. She resigned Friday, said Wake County schools spokesman Greg Thomas.

The crash occurred just before 6:30 a.m. on Ligon Mill Road near Louisburg Road, the Highway Patrol reported.

Hall was driving a handful of middle- and high-school students when her school bus crossed the center line and clipped a gray Ford Taurus, then collided head-on with a Dodge pickup truck driven by a Raleigh fire commander, Lt. Harry P. "Flip" Kissinger.

Kissinger, a veteran firefighter and married father of two young daughters, suffered multiple injuries, including severe head trauma. He died a week later, on Friday, at WakeMed.

Kissinger, 35, was known among city firefighters as a bit of a prankster who always managed to evoke laughter back at the station house after a tough fire call.

The firefighter's family moved to Raleigh from Kingsport, Tenn., when he was 9. He was a 1992 graduate of Friendship Christian School in Raleigh and joined the fire department in 1996. He had recently qualified for the department's captain's test and was scheduled to take it this week.

The family will receive visitors from 6 to 10 p.m. today at Richland Creek Community Church, 3229 Burlington Mills Road in Wake Forest. His funeral will begin at 1 p.m. Wednesday at the church, and his burial will follow at Pine Forest Burial Gardens, also in Wake Forest.

A fund has been established in his name to help care for his family.

Donations to the "Kissinger Family Care Fund" can be made at any First Citizens Bank.

Photos by Lee Wilson
Written by The News and Observer