South Hutchinson woman grieving loss of son, fiance in five-vehicle accident

Lacy Lomax was supposed to get married next month and her 13-year-old son, who had befriended her fiance, was supposed to be one of the groomsmen.

Both her fiance and son died in a five-vehicle accident Friday in Reno County.

Alexander Dennis had picked up Teagan Lomax from his biological father’s house in Nickerson and was headed back to their home in South Hutchinson when the wreck occurred just after 4 p.m. on K-14.

Traffic had slowed in the southbound lane when a 17-year-old Nickerson boy driving a Ford Mustang rear-ended Dennis, causing his car to go into the northbound lane where they were hit by a semi, a trooper with the Kansas Highway Patrol wrote on the crash log.

The Mitsubishi Galant that Dennis drove then hit a trailer being towed behind an SUV.

The semi, after hitting Dennis and Lomax, jackknifed onto the shoulder and hit a Dodge Ram truck. The 60-year-old Saint John, Kansas, man driving the semi complained of pain.

The teen driving the Mustang and the driver of the Dodge Ram weren’t injured. There were six people in the SUV, including three children ages 2 to 9. No one in the SUV was injured.

Officials then contacted Lacy Lomax about the wreck.

“I’m literally fighting to breathe,” Lomax said on Facebook. “My heart will never be the same.”

Lomax said her son was smart, funny and athletic. He was an eighth-grader at Reno Valley Middle School in Nickerson. He was the starting quarterback for the Panthers.

He loved the Kansas City Chiefs. Patrick Mahomes was his favorite player.

Lomax, who was also a Chiefs fan, said Dennis would tolerate football for her, but would always root for the other team.

Dennis was a welder at Kuhn Krause in Hutchinson. He was a “gentle soul” who would do anything for anyone and protected his loved ones, she said.

He moved from Michigan to Kansas for a fresh start over a year ago. Dennis ended up in the Oxford House program, which helps people recovering from addiction.

He then met Lomax.

The two started dating and, soon, Dennis and Teagan Lomax started their own bond. They would go to garage sales and watch movies together.

Lacy Lomax and Dennis were both in recovery and used their lives to become advocates.

Lomax helped found Addicts Against Overdose, which later became the Kansas Recovery Network. Dennis actively helped the program.

“For the first time in his life really, he was having a shot at life and a shot at real recovery and had good people surrounding him,” she said in a phone interview.

Seth Dewey, who also co-founded the network and sits on the Oxford House World Council board, said the recovery community is “deeply distressed by her loss and feel that we too have a hole in our hearts too.”

Matthew Griffin, who helped start Oxford House in Hutchinson, set up a GoFundMe to help ease the financial burden for Lacy Lomax. The fundraiser says hundreds of people are impacted by the losses.

“Teagan was such an incredible young man, full of life, love and laughter. He had a heart of gold and a smile that melted everyone,” the fundraiser says, adding that Dennis was an “inspiration to those who knew him … looked up to by so many people.”

This story was originally published February 5, 2022 at 1:32 PM.