I went to dinner the other night with some friends & my mom & Lance, my brother & sister-in-law, and we were going to go to a movie (well, the girls anyway) but we didn’t get out of the restaurant in time. So I started home and it just so happened that I was in Steve’s car that evening because he had taken Noah over to his parents’ house that night while I was out with the girls and he needed the carseat.

The girls decided to come to my house to watch a movie & Steve was on his way home with Noah. I was about to turn off of Hwy 41 onto Evans St. when I saw this car out of the corner of my eye as it was bouncing out of the ditch to my left and it came barreling across the street right in front of me into the next ditch & hit some trees. The airbags deployed and I stopped  with my headlights pointed straight at this car and got my phone out to call 911. I remember saying aloud to myself “oh my gosh, I just saw an accident… oh my gosh, oh crap, etc.”.. and then the 911 dispatcher picked up and I was trying to explain to her where I was & what had happened. All the while I’m watching as this kid, who looked about 10, got out of the front seat and ran around to the driver’s side. He was there for a minute or so and then this woman emerged from the car and they came around and started hurrying up the hill (of the ditch) and coming toward me. Then they turned and started running down Evans! I rolled my window down really fast and yelled “are you guys ok?!” and they said “Yeah we’re fine!” and kept on running. So of course I told the dispatcher what was going on and thinking to myself that they must be disoriented or something crazy or maybe they lived nearby.. ?? Then I saw movement out of the corner of my right eye and they were running full speed back to my car. I said this to the dispatcher as I started trying to think how I could switch the phone over to my right hand and figure out how to roll Steve’s car window down when they HOPPED IN MY CAR!!! I looked at them stunned and managed to say that they were in my car (I’m not sure how, but I just remember the dispatcher being like “they’re in your car right now!?”). The lady was in the front seat and the boy was in the back. This woman started telling me I had to hang up the phone and begged me not to call the cops. She said “Please don’t call the cops” probably around 15 times. Then she said “Please hang up the phone and just go” and that really jolted me into reality. I mean I was sitting there trying to listen to the dispatcher b/c I was hoping she’d tell me what to do but at the same time this woman was in my face pleading with me to hang up so I did the only thing I thought I could do. I told them that if they would get out of the car, I’d hang up the phone. I probably said this over 10 times before the kid finally jumped out of the car and opened her door and started screaming and pulling at her to come on and just run away. He convinced her to go and they left. I was shaking a ton by this point and got my head together enough to lock the doors, then I told the dispatcher everything that had happened, what they were wearing, etc. etc. and she assured me the cops would be there any second.

First let me just say, I never would’ve let them in my car. I mean, it didn’t even occur to me that someone would just run up & get in! That’s insane! It was very clear that she was on something and totally not in her right mind. She was hysterical, crying, she wreaked of smoke, neither of them were wearing coats.. they were a total mess. I figured out pretty quickly that she didn’t want me to call the cops b/c she was on drugs or alcohol but obviously I was not going to hang up that phone. All I could think when she first jumped in was to watch her hands & make sure she didn’t have a gun.

So back to the story- an older couple pulled up and made sure I was ok, checked the car for more people (which there were none), and told me to turn my blinkers on. I realized at that point that I had better call Steve. Not only could I not find the blinkers button, but I figured he was probably wondering where I was at this point since I’d called him to tell him I was on my way home. Not to mention, Joy, Janessa & Michelle were all on their way over & had probably beaten me there! None of them would’ve recognized my car as the one sitting there at the turn so they could’ve passed me right up without knowing it was me (which a couple of them did, it turns out).  Steve was totally freaked out and wanted details and wanted me to get out of there but I told him the cops were coming and at this point I wanted to make sure the cops knew what had happened, both to that little boy & to me.

Then when I got off the phone and got out to talk to this older couple, I saw the woman & the boy over standing outside of this apartment (there are buildings right there off of Evans and I had last seen them running in that direction). The cop got there a couple minutes later and a few minutes after I told him what happened the woman & boy started walking back toward us with this other woman who apparently lived in the apartment. When the cop took the drunk lady (who at this point was claiming she had only had 3 beers) over to do the breathalizer it was just me, the lady from the apartment, and the kid standing next to our car. That lady told me they had busted into her place, begged her to hide them and not call the cops, and eventually had said they were scared because the drunk woman had just gotten out of jail. Yeah… so thankfully the nice lady talked them into coming back up to the accident to talk to the police because she didn’t have anywhere else to go and she wasn’t going to hide them or let them stay. 

I was standing there for a little while longer, just waiting for the cop to write down my info. and the kid was still just standing there with no coat, obviously cold but doing everything he could to tell us how his mom wasn’t at fault and how it was the car’s fault somehow.. something about the steering wheel not working or something. It was so sad. Then he explained that his brother would be there soon to pick him up. Sure enough, a minute or two later a car pulled up from Evans (East) and two adult guys got out in t-shirts and shorts and one of them walked up to the accident scene and started wailing louder than any man I’ve ever heard in real life. He was hysterical and the other guy was trying to console him. The kid kept yelling at him “Bubby?!”.. obviously just wanting him to pay attentionto him.. all I could think was that the guy seemed way more concerned about his car than he was about the poor kid. After a minute or so of the extreme wailing, he turned around and screamed something at the woman.. some profanity and then telling her how she’s really done it this time and how could she do this to his car, yada yada..  Then the cop went over to talk to them.

When another cop pulled up I went over & asked him if the kid could sit in his car because he had no coat & it was too cold for him to be standing out there freezing, waiting for God knows how long. It was clear nobody seemed to care about this poor kid, including the cop really so it was a little disturbing.

Anyway- the cop basically came over, took down all my info. and said “yeah sorry about this.. this woman is drunk and it really pisses me off that she was driving around with this kid in the car”… I’m sure he sees that type of thing all too often. I got to finally go home and share the story with all the girls who were waiting patiently at my house! Noah was still awake so thankfully I got to hold & squeeze & kiss him. I am still thinking about it a ton lately. That poor kid.. the whole situation.. she could’ve killed someone………….. yeah it’s just awful. But I’m mostly thanking God that this woman didn’t hurt anyone else in her stupidity. How a mother could be so selfish and put her son at risk like that is absolutely beyond me. I can tell you one more thing for sure- I will always make sure my car is locked from now on!! And if that woman had jumped in my car when Noah was in there this would’ve gone much more unpleasantly for her. Ohh.. my little Noah is our “Noah Bear” and let me tell you, I will get into “Mama Bear” mode Real stinkin’ quick! It makes me sick to think he could’ve been with me and she could’ve hit me.. or she could’ve hit Steve with Noah in the back. Wow.. thank God it wasn’t a much bigger tragedy.