BEAVER FALLS (KDKA) — About 300 to 400 people gathered outside Beaver Falls High School for 16-year-old Taylor Donnadio.

She was a high school junior and a cheerleader who was killed Friday afternoon by a train at a crossing two blocks from the high school.

Her father, Joseph Donnadio, was overcome with emotion. “I know there’s a new star up there someplace,” he said.

While speaking to the gathering, he was interrupted by a passing train.

“If you need help, you find help and listen when someone’s talking to you because that’s what she heard – I’m telling you that’s what she heard. I wish I could have said something at that moment.”

Taylor’s twin sister, Logan, also a cheerleader, was comforted as she lay on the ground in front of her sister’s picture, weeping.

“Just a bright, bright young girl with a great future ahead of her,” Beaver Falls School District Superintendent Dr. Donna Nugent said.

Taylor and her sister worked part-time at the Ponderosa in Chippewa.

“My entire staff is devastated,” Kelly Walsh, the manager, said. “Not in a million years would I believe that this ever happened to such a nice girl. Always smiling, very friendly.”

Grief counselors were at the high school starting at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.

According to our news partners at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Beaver County Coroner’s Office completed an autopsy Saturday morning and ruled that the teen died from multiple blunt force trauma.

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