Jacob Jernigan

It was a normal day. We were doing the errands that we would usually start on that day. But the fate of this day was very different from the others, leaving the event imprinted in my head, for a long time to come. It began when we had left the house to go get something to eat, and then hopefully go shopping. The problem was we had to stop by a bank near our house, by what is now a Krispy Kreme Donut shop. We got the money to go eat somewhere, but as we were pulling out of the bank, I glanced over to the stoplight where cars were, A lane was open, and a couple of seconds later, a white utility van sped past that light toward us, and then BAM!

The wreck was very short, although it felt longer than it should have. When we were hit, tires screeched like fingernails going down a chalkboard, and it sounded like a glass cup shattering. The visual of the wreck was like a bottle spinning on a table, all I could see was a mix of white, black, green, and red as cars were surrounding our crinkled mess of a vehicle.

Eventually we spun to a halt and were able to figure out the perpetrator of the accident, a woman with pre-torn clothes, incomplete make-up, and an unfinished braid, giving her a very “Poor” look. My mother got out to talk to the woman, but when my mother opened the door the woman sped of in the direction she was going in the first place, and disappears behind another vehicle,  my Father proceeds to call the police and my mother decides to chase the woman by going in that direction. We eventually came to a light right next to the woman and my father rolled down the window and asked  her why she did not stop, She screamed, “I am late for a meeting at my job.” Then she quickly sped off, again, towards Salem, but this time we did not follow her, because police were already in the area.

If she had stopped and exchanged her insurances correctly, she would not gotten a felony charge for Hit and Run, and charges for failure to yield, evading police, and two counts of child endangerment. She would have been sentenced with 5-10 years in jail. If I were her at that moment, I would have stopped and attended to the situation as correctly as possible.