The Most Dangerous Place on Earth(68)
Then he was ice calm. He thought, Oh shit, someone got in an accident.
Behind him, Alessandra started yelling, “Oh my God, oh my God!” Ryan was hugging his airbag like a teddy bear and it was funny as shit but it wasn’t. Cally was crying and screaming and Nick was holding up his hands now, staring at his lap. Dark blood sliced his forehead. Damon wondered what he was looking at.
It could have been the sirens he heard or just his memories of them echoing. He didn’t wait to find out. He rolled out the driver’s-side door, took off running through the rain, and didn’t look back.
MISS NICOLL
On the morning after the faculty dinner, Molly scanned the news online. Dutifully she checked the New York Times, although its violent photos and stern headlines had seemed over the recent months increasingly distant and unreal. Then she clicked over to the local Marin Independent Journal:
May 26, 2013
Mill Valley Crash Injures Five Teens, One Critically; Driver Arrested on Suspicion of DUI
by Nathan Hanlon
MILL VALLEY—One juvenile has been detained by police and another is in critical condition after their 2012 BMW 5 Series sedan slammed into a tree at high speed early this morning, officials said. The crash occurred at approximately 1:30 a.m. on Throckmorton Avenue in Mill Valley, Mill Valley Police Department spokesman Dan Cisco said.
The critically injured teen, a 16-year-old female, is being treated at Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae. Four additional passengers were treated for minor injuries and released this morning, hospital officials said.
According to Cisco, the car was driven by a 17-year-old juvenile of Mill Valley and registered to his parents, also of Mill Valley. Cisco added that the teens were fleeing a Cascade Canyon house party that had “spun out of control.” Officers were called to the party scene by a neighbor who complained of “disturbing and excessive noise,” Cisco said, and the accident occurred as the teens exited the canyon and headed toward Lytton Square in downtown Mill Valley.
It is believed that alcohol as well as marijuana and possibly other illegal substances were present at the party. The MVPD is still investigating how the teens obtained the alcohol, said Officer Aaron Shmersky. Several witnesses who wished to remain anonymous indicated that all of the teens, including the driver, had been drinking prior to the accident.
Cisco said the car may have been going as fast as 55 miles per hour through this quiet residential neighborhood when the driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed headfirst into the tree, an old-growth redwood native to this region.
Immediately following the crash, the driver attempted to flee the scene, Cisco said. He was pursued on foot by an MVPD officer who observed the accident from his patrol car. The officer was parked a block from the crash site, near the intersection of Throckmorton Avenue and Olive Street. According to Cisco, the driver’s blood alcohol level was measured at 0.16 percent. (The legal limit for adults is 0.08 percent.) “This incident underscores the need for stricter enforcement of our citywide curfews,” said Mill Valley City Council member Sandra Smith-Wolinsky. “As we have seen in this case, teenagers allowed to roam our community freely and unattended are likely to pose a danger not only to themselves, but to all of us.”
COMMENTS
Al Blackburn: Just more stupid Marin kids taking peoples lives in their hands.
Dianne P.: Don’t teenagers have parents anymore?
Cheryl Yamhill-Brooks: Kids’ brains don’t develop until they are in their twenties. thats why they need guidance to learn about the DANGEROUS affects of drug and alcohol.
steven p.: tax payer money being used to send these iresponsible rich kids to rehab? I DON’T THINK SO.
Greg Hill: What are these parents thinking giving that kid that nice of a car???
Janis W.: I don’t understand why did this happen? When I was a kid I had to buy my own car.
cynthia y.: lock this kid up NOW before he hurts somebody else!
1MarinView: This is not even half the story. Get all the details and REAL reporting at www.onemarinviewblog.com!
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Molly ventured down the Internet rabbit hole. She typed in the blog’s url. Here names were named. Screenshots were posted from the night before: reposts from teenagers’ accounts on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and Vine. She read about the ransacked house of Elisabeth Avarine and the arrest of Damon Flintov. Everywhere were names she knew, and faces. Faces she knew drinking and smoking and grinding and stripping, names she knew—even Nick Brickston—spouting obscenities and humiliating the weakest among them. In dull horror she scrolled through nearly naked photos and videos of the injured Emma Fleed, a popular girl who’d eaten lunch in Molly’s classroom but whose name Molly hadn’t known. The kids had posted all this online with apparently brazen indifference, and the Internet had refreshed their posts over and over again, until it seemed the night had occurred not just once but an infinite number of times.
Alone in her apartment, Molly was powerless. She hated the feeling. After an hour of pacing, she gave in to impulse: she picked up her cell phone and dialed the number she had.
“Nick,” she said to his voicemail, “it’s me, Molly. Miss Nicoll. I’ve just seen the news. It’s so horrible, I can’t believe it. What happened last night? I mean, I can see—I know what happened. Everyone knows what happened. But why?” Her voice threatened to crack—she hung up. She sat on the edge of her love seat still vibrating from the call. In her head she heard her message as Nick Brickston would, and she sounded unhinged.