Yesterday there was a pretty serious car accident right in front of my house. A 19 y/o high school senior lost control of her car. I think her engine died on her while she was starting the car - we live on a really steep hill - and her car started rolling backward down the hill really fast with her sitting behind the wheel. It sideswiped DH's truck, came up on our sidewalk, smacked into a boulder at the edge of our driveway, caught air, hit our neighbor's tree about 6 feet from the ground, fell into our neighbor's driveway and totaled his car. The poor kid was not wearing her seat belt and got banged up pretty bad, tho miraculously she wasn't bleeding. She probably had at least a concussion, and was going into shock when her sister arrived to take her to the hospital.

Things got really weird when the girl's family got involved. The girl is a friend of my neighbor's and attends a really posh all-female private school. Anyway, we called her mom and she refused to come help her daughter because she was in "an important meeting" and "she couldn't leave it even if she was dying." Then she laid into my neighbor for helping her daughter, and actually threatened to sue her for calling a tow truck and an ambulance. She sent the girl's sister and boyfriend over, who proceeded to scream at her for being "stupid" as soon as they arrived. They only backed down after DH told them to shut up.

I know people react to stress in bizarre ways, but I am still struggling to understand this today. When the sister left to take the girl to the ER, she threw her car in reverse and gunned it backward down the hill. You could hear the girl screaming in terror in the car all the way down the street.

DH called the mom today to get their insurance info (the girl had no license or insurance cards on her) and she actually thanked him for helping her daughter. Then she said, "I'll have to call you back with my insurance info. I'm on the toilet." and hung up.

I feel so bad for that girl.