Eighteen-year-old Mason Endres was walking with a friend down a crowded Austin street early Thursday morning when she was struck by a drunken driver who plowed through a street barricade. She was one of 23 people injured in the horrific incident. Two died.
Endres suffered a concussion, cervical spine fracture, a broken nose and femur, and a severed artery in her leg. She’s been in the hospital since Thursday, and because of the concussion, doesn’t remember much of that night. One of the bands she was hoping to see during SXSW was the Phoenix-based folk group Jared & the Mill. She connected with them at last year’s SXSW, and stayed in touch through Twitter and Facebook. She’d been talking to a couple of the band members right before the accident.
Endres got a special hospital visit from her favorite band on Saturday, when they performed at her bedside at St. David’s Medical Center. Singer Jared Kolesar related that Endres was one of their first fans in Austin, and brought people out to their shows, so they repaid her kindness with an intimate concert. Endres’s father said that when she was told Jared would be coming by, her heart rate went up.
Six people involved in the crash remained hospitalized as of Saturday evening.
H/T Statesman | Screengrab via Statesman.com