Strange events on icy roads

This goes down as the strangest thing I've seen on the way to work since I saw that garbage truck on fire last year. Here's what happened. If you live in the Triangle, you know we had some pretty nasty roads out there this morning. A light sprinkling of rain that froze on the ground. It's the worst on the bridges. I crossed a couple of bridges on the way to work and was shifting and sliding as I drove across.

One of the bridges was located right next to a biscuit place where I got breakfast. After having gotten my bacon-and-egg, I was fixing to pull back out onto the road when I heard screeching and slamming. Looking to my left at the bridge, I could see that a couple of large trucks and some other cars were stopped on the bridge, obviously in some sort of pile up. Just then, a burgandy Mercedes drives right in front of me, going away from the crash. The whole front end of the car is smashed up. I watched it go on up the road, looked back at the crash scene for a few seconds, then proceeded to turn right (the same direction that Mercedes had gone) and started toward my office. A few hundred yards up the hill, a lady is standing on the sidewalk flagging me down. I stop and she tells me that her car has gone off the road, down the embankment. This is where it starts to get weird.

This lady WAS the burgandy Mercedes driver. I see the smoke coming up from the gully and peer down at the car below. The embankment is about a 100 drop starting almost right at the sidewalk. She said that she lost control of the car and it went off the road. I ask her if she rode the car down to the bottom, and she says, no, she jumped out.

Now keep in mind two things. One, she was going uphill on the way to the embankment, at a moderate speed. I don't understand how it's possible to lose control of a car and go off the road when you're going up hill. Two, the drop down the embankment started right after the sidewalk. Basically, once you start going off the road, you're on the sidewalk and then you're starting steeply down the drop. I don't understand when she could have jumped out, unless it was on the street. She couldn't have jumped out on her way down the hill - I got there too quick for that.

So here's the best I can put it together in my mind. From things she told me, I could tell that she caused the wreck on the bridge. She evidently fled the scene, passing in front of me, and then drove her car off the road. I'm not sure if she ditched the car intentionally or unintentionally.

So there you have it. Strange mornings in Chapel Hill.