BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB/Gray News) – Coming back from a horse show, the Gilpin family says they were faced with the scariest moments of their lives.
On Jan. 18, the family was driving on Interstate 59 from Slidell when another driver lost control of their vehicle and slammed into the Gilpin’s truck and trailer, pushing them off the road.
The family’s truck flew over a canal and flipped over. Their horse, Whiskey, was in the trailer that became detached and also overturned.
The Gilpin family said everything happened in just a matter of minutes.
And that’s when 14-year-old Mia Gilpin took control of the situation. She said she saw her parents were trapped in the car and there was only one way out.
“I kicked the window, I didn’t have any shoes on, but I kicked the window out and I felt my parents coming out behind me,” Mia said.
Once her parents were safe, she went to rescue her best friend, Whiskey.
“Once I got him turned around, we kind of walked out the back of the trailer and jumped in the canal and we swam out,” Mia said.
Mia’s mother, Stacy Gilpin, said if it weren’t for her daughter, she doesn’t know if any of them would’ve made it.
Stacy Gilpin said since the crash, the family has been having flashbacks of what happened and how close of a call everything was.
The family said they are still trying to wrap their heads around what happened while wondering how could the other driver just leave them for dead.
“To leave somebody like that, accidents happen … but you don’t leave somebody like that,” Stacy Gilpin said. “If we had flipped 10 feet sooner, we would have drowned in the canal and nobody would have found us until the next morning because it was so dark.”
The family – including Whiskey – suffered a few injuries, but they said someone was looking out for them that night.
“A miracle — God had his hand on me. I would’ve never thought I would be able to do any of that,” Mia said.
The 14-year-old called 911, kicked the truck window out, pulled her parents out of the flipped vehicle, and then saved her horse in an overturned trailer.
She also said she continues to question how someone who caused so much damage wouldn’t even stop to help.
“Just for them to leave us there, it kind of breaks my heart just to know that the world is like that,” Mia said.
Louisiana State Police confirmed the hit-and-run crash.
Stacy Gilpin said the other vehicle was a white pickup truck and it should be showing some damage after the crash.
Louisiana authorities said if anyone has further information about what happened that night or more details regarding the other vehicle to contact Crimestoppers at 225-344-STOP.
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