A crash, two strangers, and a moment of kindness

Angelina Carlisle couldn’t breathe. A panic attack had taken hold. Her father was being checked by paramedics, their car was totaled, and she felt helpless.

Then, two women – strangers – appeared.

One, a bystander in a blue car, knelt beside her. The other had heard Angelina’s screams from her home and ran outside.

Without hesitation, they held her, spoke to her, and told her it was going to be all right.

“I kept saying, ‘This is my fault. This wouldn’t have happened if my dad didn’t have to pick me up,’” Angelina said this week. “Rachel just grabbed me and said, ‘This is not your fault. Things like this happen.’”

The kindness of two strangers made her see things differently.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that,” she said. “People who didn’t even know me just cared.”

A crash in Eden Prairie

It was Sunday, Feb. 2, at about 6:40 p.m., when Angelina, 20, and her father, Jake Carlisle, were involved in a serious car accident on Prairie Center Drive at the intersection with Preserve Boulevard in Eden Prairie.

The Carlisles, who live in Chaska, were heading home after Jake picked Angelina up from work at her job in Eden Prairie. Her car had broken down recently, and she couldn’t afford an Uber that day.

They had barely left the parking lot when another driver, who was later cited for failure to yield at the intersection, crashed into them. The impact deployed the airbags in the Carlisles’ car.

Angelina, who has long COVID-19 and anxiety, stepped out of the car, her mind racing as she tried to process what had just happened.

That’s when Rachel arrived.

“She told me she had just lost her grandmother the day before,” Angelina said. “Even in her own grief, she stayed with me. She kept me grounded.”

The second woman, whose name Angelina never learned, had been inside her apartment when she heard the commotion.

“She hugged me so tightly and said, ‘My daughter has anxiety, too. This is what we do,’” Angelina recalled. “She just kept talking to me, keeping me calm.”

A mother’s call and a viral Facebook post

Angelina’s mother, Nita Carlisle, was at home in Chaska when she got the call.

“Jake called me, and he didn’t make sense,” she said in an interview on Feb. 11. “All I heard was, ‘The car,’ and then my daughter screaming.”

By the time she arrived at the scene, Angelina was still shaken but no longer alone.

The next day, Nita posted about the experience on Facebook, including in the Eden Prairie Bulletin Board group, sharing a photo of Angelina giving a thumbs-up in the emergency room.

“There were two women bystanders that stopped to help my daughter as she sat there while her dad was in the ambulance. One I spoke with briefly named Rachel. The other woman, I don’t know. I think she lived nearby. THANK YOU!!! You helped her through a severe panic attack, holding her close.”

The post quickly gained traction. Messages of support poured in, reinforcing what Angelina had begun to realize – that kindness, even from strangers, could make a profound difference.

“The mom community is amazing. I would treat other kids how I would want mine treated,” one woman commented in the Eden Prairie Bulletin Board group. “I always tell my daughter that if she gets lost – find a mom. They will know what to do.”

A shift in perspective

Before the accident, Angelina had been struggling. Long COVID had made even daily tasks difficult, and financial struggles forced her to stop therapy.

“I was just done before that accident,” she admitted. “I didn’t care what happened to me. But those women, their kindness … it changed something in me. It made me want to keep going.”

Inspired, she took action.

“My mom helped adjust it, but I wrote it out,” she said. “After experiencing such kindness from those women, I realized I wasn’t doing enough – I needed to start giving back.”

She started by launching a GoFundMe campaign to support her father, who was already awaiting a kidney transplant before the accident.

“Mom, we just have to do this. We have to push and find Dad a kidney. He needs to be OK,” she told Nita.

Moving forward

In the days since the crash, Angelina and Jake have been recovering and adjusting to life without their car. Though shaken and sore, both have returned to work. With their vehicle totaled, they now rely on rideshares and public transit to get around.

But something inside Angelina has shifted.

“There’s so much negativity out there,” Nita said. “Angelina was really struggling, but those two women – those strangers – changed something in her. She realized that there’s good out there. That people care.”

Angelina hopes to find Rachel and the other woman to thank them properly.

“I just want them to know I’m OK,” she said. “I want to pay it forward. I haven’t experienced such kindness and people who truly care before. Such a small gesture can really change the way you think and the way you want to treat others.”