Oro Valley, Arizona
On the evening of February 1, 2014, 92-year-old
Persis Draper hit 43-year-old jogger/pedestrian
Dori Stolmaker with her car. Dori was launched high into the air and landed right in the path of more oncoming traffic. Fortunately, those drivers were kind/aware enough to
stop and help the injured woman. Persis, on the other hand, totally cheesed it out of there....
...only to return to the scene of the accident 45 minutes later. A witness who had observed the incident
followed Persis, took down her license plate number, and called the police. This should be where the story ends: A hit-and-run perpetrator is caught and justice is served. But for those of us with an incredibly childish sense of humor like mine, this tale gets much, much better.
In a statement to the local media, Persis insisted that she
did not, in fact, leave the scene of an accident. She was merely trying to avoid a having a catastrophic accident herself due to a severe bout of diarrhea.
According to Persis' very detailed account, she was going to visit a friend that fateful evening when Montazuma's Revenge struck in full force. Not wanting to be rude and/or annihilate her friend's toilet, Persis called to cancel their social engagement.
But before heading home to experience some sweet relief, Persis decided to first stop by the grocery store and
pick up some bread rolls for a pot luck dinner she would be attending at her church later that evening. It was during this little detour that Persis ran over Dori.
When asked why she didn't stop to assist the person she'd just hit, Persis responded by saying:
“The diarrhea started up again after the accident happened. I was going to stop, but then the diarrhea came and I didn’t stop.”
Reading that quote caused me to do a couple of things:
1. Snicker and giggle uncontrollably like the immature man child that I am.
2. Feel a very small amount sympathy for Persis.
Running over any living being with a vehicle is almost always a terrible thing to do (
unless you're Ripley on LV426), but a bad bout of the squirts can make even the most decent person morph into an irrational monster.
Lame caption not necessary
Unfortunately, the rest of Persis' story/actions that evening don't really pass the smell test (HA!).
After hitting Dori, Persis kept on trucking to the grocery store, where she presumably unloaded her payload and caused one of the employees to have a much worse day than he or she could have possibly anticipated. She then drove back to the scene of the accident...but not before first
purchasing the bread rolls she needed for the pot luck dinner that night.
After seeing that no one was there anymore (because it was almost an hour later and paramedics like to keep things moving along), Dori swung by her church to drop off the dinner rolls. But despite her stomach still being upset, Dori opted not to defecate inside God's house. Instead, she drove home, took a pill, and went to sleep.
When the police arrived at Persis' home later that evening, she initially told them that she'd left the scene of the accident
because she was scared. In her statement to the local media however, Persis claimed to have forgotten to tell the police officers that she'd been afflicted the with green apple splatters.
Persis also wanted to make sure everyone knew a couple of things she (presumably) thought would help people to view her in a better light.
1. She immediately
called her insurance company after hitting Dori.
2. She "
empathized" with Dori and was praying for her to feel better.
Persis also continued to deny being involved in a hit-and-run, repeating her assertion that the diarrhea had
given her no choice except to act like a callous asshole. Unfortunately for her, the law does not consider the impending creation of a Havana Omelet to be a free pass for mowing down pedestrians.
Persis Draper was
charged with
failure to control speed to avoid an accident, failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, and leaving the scene of accident with injury and failure to render aid. Authorities claim she was not taken to jail due to the charges being minor, but it was probably because they didn't want her clogging the prison toilet.
On the other side of the ordeal, Dori is still pretty banged up, but should make a full and speedy recovery.
...and that's something we can all be happy about.
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