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WEST VALLEY CITY — It’s safe to say no one likes being stuck in traffic.
On the night of June 15, though, it didn’t matter how busy the intersection at 3100 South and 2700 West in West Valley City was because Cherie Bangerter and her husband were happy after going to the Alabama concert.
“It’s her favorite group," Brad Bangerter, Cherie's son, said with a laugh. "She was so excited to go. She was posting it on Facebook left and right.”
Brad Bangerter was in Idaho with his family and decided to text his mother after the concert to ask how it went.
"She said 'I loved it. It was fantastic.' And then we got a call from my sister — gosh, it must have been 20 minutes later,” he said.
That call from his sister wasn’t about the concert. It was about the crash his mother and father had just been in at that intersection while heading home. The person who hit their car had left the scene.
“He never stopped to make sure they were okay,” Brad Bangerter said. “A couple of nurses stopped luckily and helped, pushed their way through people that weren’t helping, to be honest. They said there were a lot of people standing around and this new generation with their phones up just filming.”
Even though plenty of people got footage of what happened after the crash, it seems no one got video of the driver and car who hit them.
“It’s sad," he said. "It’s almost like people just care about the likes or care about 'what can I put on here to shock people.'"
His father was okay, but his mother needed help. She was rushed to a nearby hospital and is still in a medically-induced coma, though doctors have hope she’ll be okay.
“She’s a happy soul," Carrie Bangerter, Cherie's daughter in-law, said. "I feel lucky to be in her family.”
They’re hoping someone who knows something about the crash will call police.
“Someone had to have seen it. That’s why we’re doing this,” Brad Bangerter said. “We want to find out who did. Does anyone know anything? Can anyone come forward and help us find out who did it because we want to know and we want some answers.”
West Valley police say they are still looking for the person who hit the Bangerters. The vehicle that hit them is described as a gold or a light brown SUV.
A GoFundMe page has been set up for the family.
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