Seymour youth pastor dies suddenly, days after being diagnosed with flu

SEYMOUR, Ind. (WAVE) – A Southern Indiana community is mourning their friend and colleague who died suddenly this week.

Allison Williams, 36, passed away Monday, just days after being diagnosed with the flu.

"She was a very kind and loving person," Reddington Christian Church Pastor Scott Brown said. "She was a giver of gifts and cards and words of encouragement."

Brown described Williams as a woman with deep and genuine faith. She had been a member of the church for 11 years, serving as the youth pastor for most of that time.

"She was by far the best youth pastor I have ever worked with in 34 years," Brown said.

Williams lead nearly 100 kids, from babies to high schoolers, at the church each week.

"She adored the children in her youth program from the babies all the way to high school," Brown said. "She was motherly for these kids in that she often referred to the kids as ‘my kids.’ She took this protective nature with the children."

Brown said Williams was diagnosed with the flu last week after she had already gotten a flu shot.

"She told me Monday morning, she said, 'I don't know why I got a flu shot, it didn't do me any good,'" Brown recalled. "Little did we know she would be gone in a few hours."

Brown and his wife and other church members checked on Williams last week and over the weekend.

"On Monday morning at about 10:30 a.m. I went over to her home and checked on her and she was worse," Brown said. "And I said, 'Allison, you need to let me take you to the ER,' and she didn't want to go at that moment, and she said, ‘Give me until noon.’"

Brown returned at noon and Williams agreed to let him take her to the hospital.

"We weren't there less than 5 minutes and she went into cardiac arrest and passed away," Brown said, "and that's the surprising thing. The doctors had told us that even if we had gotten her there earlier in the day it would not have mattered."

Brown said Williams was deeply loved by the church's congregation and the greater community in Seymour.

“We’ll get through this because we know where our hope lies. Our hope lies in Christ,” Brown said. “We’re going to be okay. We just have to go through a time of healing.”

There will be a visitation on Thursday at 5 p.m. at Reddington Christian Church followed by the funeral at 7 p.m.

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