Bakersfield College students Glendalyn Gallegos and Julie Tassin were victims of a hit-and-run accident on the intersection of Mount Vernon and Vanderbilt Drive. Officer J. Hernandez was on the scene and said that there was a car collision, but that everything was fine. She stayed on the scene with both students while she waited for backup. Hernandez later helped Gallegos when she called her insurance company.

Gallegos was driving south on Mount Vernon when she was struck by another vehicle turning left going 20 to 30 miles per hour according to Gallegos.

“I was going straight … and he just drove off going 20 or 30, he stopped for a bit and then left. They found him; he called to the cops saying that he got in a car accident and that the other person wasn’t there anymore or something, but everyone who were witnesses here had already called [the police],” Gallegos said.

Gallegos and Tassin were on their way to a Starbucks for a break before class when they were struck. Gallegos said her chest hurt a lot and that she felt disoriented when asked to spell her name and was too dizzy, so she handed her ID instead. Tamsin, who was sitting on the passenger side, seemed less affected and was able to spell out her name.

Gallegos said she and Tassin were looked at by paramedics in the ambulance but were going to wait for Gallegos’s mother to take them to the hospital as an ambulance would be too expensive.

Jose Manuel Cortez, the Director of Legislative Affairs at BC, was on the scene and mentioned he was trying to get the students’ professors’ names so he could email them about the situation as they most likely would not make it to class.

The driver of the vehicle that hit the students was male, he was localized shortly and was reported to have been seen and followed to his residence where he proceeded to empty his car, enter his home and refused to exit. This was Gallegos’s first big car accident and admitted that it was a very scary situation to be in.