ANKENY, Iowa - An Ankeny child care worker says she was fired for helping a family following a deadly crash.

Last May, a driver allegedly ran a stop sign crashing into a minivan driven by Cedar Rapids native Heather DeJoode.

She suffered severe brain damage and was hospitalized until October.

Two of her children died in the crash - five-year-old son, Carson, and five-month old daughter, Claire. Three year-old Chase survived the wreck.

Like many people, an Ankeny day care provider stepped up to help Chase and his parents.

And now she says she was fired because of it.

Shelley Huss has a lot of free time these days. She uses it to walk her daughters home from school, and search for a job. She was fired on Monday, and has taken phone call after phone call from parents since then.

"This would be very hard to go through if I didn't have that, and I'm so thankful for it," she said.

Huss was the director of Childtime in Ankeny, until corporate found out she was giving free childcare to 3-year old Chase Dejoode. His brother and sister died in a crash near the Tones factory in May of last year. His mother was severely injured.

"I contacted my supervisor at the time and asked what we could do for the family," Huss said. "They got back to me and said we could do one week free."

That wasn't enough for Huss, who felt her corporate office in Michigan didn't understand the kind of community Ankeny was. She told Troy DeJoode his son could attend for free, as long as it was necessary.

"You're not often given an opportunity to provide support to a family that needs it so much, and that was just what we were called to do," Huss said, "and I just feel strongly that's what we were doing and I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

The DeJoodes took over payments in March. A corporate audit the same month revealed what Huss had been doing.

"I told them that I went ahead and did this for the family because I felt their response wasn't substantial enough," Huss said.

On Monday she was terminated. It's not what she was expecting.

"I was hoping that it might be a write-up, something like that," she said.

A statement released by Childtime's corporate office says Huss' firing was "based on continued policy violations and not connected to any specific issue."

But Huss says she's twice won the company's diamond director Award and says last summer her center received another award for surpassing revenue expectations. There's a plaque by the door dedicating the building to her for 20 years of service. She says she's only had one other write-up in her two decades long career.

"This wasn't a pattern I was developing," Huss said. "I felt if I was going to be reprimanded, that I could take that and we could move on, but I was fired."

The Dejoode family released a statement after this story first aired on KCCI and said they were shocked to hear of Huss' dismissal.

The corporate statement also says that they have policies and procedures in place for a reason: to protect the level of care they provide for their families.

The man accused of running the red light and causing the deadly wreck is Kevin Dalasta of Norwalk. He faces two counts of vehicular homicide and will go to trial next month.