Her apology wasn't enough for enraged driver

[question everything]

StarTribune.com

Her apology wasn't enough for enraged driver

By JIM ADAMS, Star Tribune

February 29, 2008

Jennifer Boulden had just made a slow U-turn on Hwy. 169 south of Shakopee, when the guy coming up fast behind her started honking and motioning to pull over. She stopped on the shoulder and the man got out of his pickup. She rolled her window down and said he started screaming at her. He walked away, and she followed him to his truck, trying to apologize. He kept swearing. She got scared and tried to call 911, but he grabbed her cell phone and threw it on the highway, she said. It shattered. Then he picked up the 5-foot-5, 125-pound mother of five from Prior Lake and tossed her.

"I was high in the air and then I was in middle of 169 northbound," she recalled from her hospital bed Thursday morning at St. Francis Regional Medical Center in Shakopee. "I remember rolling over and hearing skidding brakes. A lady got out and stopped traffic. A man ran and scooped me up and carried me to side of road."

Road rage assaults happen, but this kind is rare.

(snip)

The man sped off in his truck but nobody got his license plate number, said Capt. Greg Muelken of the Scott County Sheriff's office... Muelken advised drivers in a situation with an angry, honking motorist to call for help on a cell phone and not to stop except in a public area with people around. "You don't know what to expect, unfortunately," he said.

Boulden was released from the hospital Thursday afternoon. She said she was amazed by the dozen or so motorists who stopped to help before rescue workers arrived... She said she's taking pain medication for two herniated discs in her spinal column and a severely injured lower back and right leg. She expects to start physical therapy today and may need surgery. Relatives are taking care of her and her husband's five kids, ages 2 to 14, she said.

Boulden said she'd like to ask the pickup driver why he was so angry. "Why couldn't he have been an adult about it when all I wanted to do was apologize? That shouldn't happen. I don't want it to happen to anybody else. I guess I was one of the lucky ones."

http://www.startribune.com/local/south/16075672.html