ATLANTA — Family and colleagues remember 38-year-old Amy St. Pierre, the woman who was killed in Wednesday afternoon’s shooting at a medical center in Midtown Atlanta.
A simple social media search will show you, she loved her community and loved being involved. It permeated through her work at nonprofit New American Pathways, the Preeclampsia Foundation, and the immigration organization El Refugio.
She also played an important role in establishing the CDC’s Maternal Mortality Team. The group said St. Pierre was the first person hired when the program began in 2016.
Through that work, she first met Dr. Michael Kramer 10 years ago.
“Amy and others on the team put on this huge national meeting just a couple of weeks ago here in Atlanta that brought physicians and public health professionals and nurses from 30 to 35 states to talk about this work,” he said. “She was so excited, as were others on the team to just be in-person again. What a terrible loss personally, for her friends and colleagues on the team, and for those of us on the outskirts. But that team has a lot of momentum right now because of her.”
Dr. Kramer explained Amy was most proud of her two young kids. He said she would bike with her kids to school, no matter the weather.
“She was passionate about her kids,” he said. “She would talk about them and share pictures. I bike commute to work and she would bike her kids to school. There was a route in Virginia Highlands that we would occasionally cross paths and so I always liked seeing her on one of those big utility bikes that you can put your kids on. She’d be trucking along in the rain or the cold.”
In a statement, her family said she will be missed but never forgotten.
"Our beloved Amy was brilliant, kind, big-hearted and simply the 'best of the best'. Amy traveled the world with curiosity and courage. She was driven by compassion, both in her work in the field of maternal mortality, and in her everyday life. Amy was selfless always, she wanted more for others but never for herself. Generous supporter of worthy causes, she was the social conscience of our family,” the statement read.
Amy was one of five women shot in Wednesday’s shooting at Northside Medical Midtown. The four survivors are 25, 39, 56, and 71 years old.
Dr. Robert Jansen, Chief Medical Officer for Grady Hospital, said he’s been able to speak with two of them.
“They have been traumatized,” Dr. Jansen said. ”They are very grateful for the support and care they received. They realized this is a horrific event and the fact that they were in a healthcare facility just makes things worse.”
As of Thursday afternoon, three of the women were in the ICU, while the other is in stable condition.
“Physically they all have a ways to go,” he said. “Psychologically and mentally, we have to remember the impact on them and their families. You can’t understand how traumatic this is.”
While the community is feeling heavy hearted as some family members pray for a speedy recovery, those who knew Amy are forced to say goodbye.
“It’s shocking… These things happen so frequently now and we get so numb to them you don’t expect to know somebody,” Dr. Kramer said. “But they happen so often, how could we not?”
Message sent to the CDC’s Maternal Mortality Team:
We lost a beloved friend and colleague here in Atlanta yesterday. Amy St. Pierre, 39, CDC Maternal Mortality Prevention Team Deputy, was killed yesterday in a mass shooting in Atlanta.
Amy was the first staff person hired at the program’s inception in 2016. She helped build and launch the CDC’s Maternal Mortality Review Information Application (2017) and the Enhancing Reviews and Surveillance to Eliminate Maternal Mortality program (2019).
We cannot begin to express our devastation over her tragic and untimely death. She drove our team to be good and strive for equity in outcomes for all pregnant and postpartum people.
Amy pulled us all together and kept us going. She was composed and professional and drove us to answer the hard questions and do hard things. In remote work she kept our virtual gatherings personal and human. She tackled management tasks with fresh eyes, kept us organized and made everything she touched better. She built cooperative agreements and contracts, she maintained a large and complex budget, running it like a well-oiled machine. She wrangled federal acquisition machinery with poise.
She was an incredible mother. She was an incredible friend. She was present, she was giving, she was a true Atlanta local who gave it her all. She was an incredible writer. She wrote the loveliest longhand notes. She fostered and adopted dogs. She was a regular at the dog park. She was a swimmer. She was a ballet dancer. She was a book club member. She bicycle commuted. She was active in her community. She advocated for positive change. Our community grieves her loss deeply.
Our team will be taking time to reflect and remember. Thank you for your patience as we grieve our dear Amy.
Editor's note: St. Pierre's age is 38. The statement above said she was 39.
Message from New American Pathways:
Yesterday New American Pathways lost a member of our family. Amy St. Pierre, the victim killed in yesterday’s shooting in Midtown, worked as an Executive Assistant at RRISA in 2010-2012. Although Amy was only with the organization for a short time, she made an enormous impact on our clients and our team.
After leaving New AP to work with the CDC, she continued to volunteer with us and was a champion for refugees in Georgia. Amy was smart, hard-working, and above all incredibly kind.
We are deeply saddened to lose a member of our New AP family who touched so many lives in such a short time. Our thoughts are with Amy’s family, especially her husband and two children.
Message from Preeclampsia Foundation:
“Our hearts are just shattered to learn that the victim in yesterday’s shooting was Amy St. Pierre, a tireless champion for maternal and infant health with the CDC. We grieve this senseless, tragic loss," the Preeclampsia Foundation said.
Message from Fulton County Schools, the district Amy graduated high school from:
“The district can confirm she is a graduate but does not make statements about former Fulton County Schools students during an ongoing investigation.”
Message from Chattahoochee High School, where Amy graduated from:
Yesterday’s tragic shooting in Atlanta took the life of a CHS Class of 2003 alumnus Amy St. Pierre (Amy Wald) Please pray for her husband and two beautiful children.