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Police are still seeking the driver of the car that hit her. Oberholzer was watching movies with friends from class at Ian Gallant's apartment on Weymouth Street, before leaving at about 1:30 a.m. to walk home. She was at the corner of Kent and Weymouth Streets when she noticed a car speeding towards her. It didn't stop. "Nothing really was going on before that," Gallant says earnestly. "I think some people think she was drinking, which she wasn't. We were just sitting around doing nothing. I got a phone call early the next morning that it had happened and I went into the hospital that night to see her." Gallant wasn't the only one to pay Oberholzer a visit. Dawn Murphy, another classmate, says people went in every day for the 10 days after the accident, before Oberholzer returned to Newfoundland. Having no family nearby, Oberholzer would have been alone in the hospital if not for her friends' frequent visits. The students didn't see this as an inconvenience, it just came naturally. "It wasn't always the same people," the red-headed Murphy says. "There would always be a carload going during the day. Four of us went one day at lunch time and stayed with her for a little over an hour and then people went in after supper, too. A couple of people were in every day." Murphy admits she almost fainted on that visit, because she'd never seen anyone in a hospital before, but she would have gone again. Gallant wasn't surprised by his class's reaction. "I tried to go every day if I could. There was always someone going. It seems different here than high school. We're a pretty close class. Everyone hangs out quite a bit. I think it's because we're here all the time, everyone's always together. We work late at night and on weekends," he says, pausing between thoughts. Stephen Callbeck, who sat beside Oberholzer in the class tries to rationalize the incident. "I don't know if at the time (the driver) was aware anything happened or how bad it was. Maybe they thought she just struck the car and rolled away," Callbeck says, sitting cross-legged on a bench in the classroom. Not only did the students give their time, they opened their wallets, too. "We pooled up some money," Callbeck says. "We wanted to do something for her and decided since she was going to be in the hospital for a while, we'd get her a TV." Murphy says people didn't buy Oberholzer presents per se, but did their best to keep her company. The class mascot was brought to her hospital room. "We have a class monkey," Murphy says, keeping a fairly straight face. "The monkey wears a T-shirt that a guy in the class designed." Murphy says Oberholzer had high spirits despite the seriousness of her injuries. "She was the happiest I've seen her in a long time. I think she really liked the attention that she got." Oberholzer is still in a hospital bed in Gander. "They keep finding more things wrong with her," Murphy says, shaking her head. "Like, they didn't know anything was wrong with her pelvis, it was really sore. She just thought it was bruised really badly and it turns out she has two fractures." Oberholzer also is dealing with a a broken fibula, torn knee ligaments and a fractured lower backbone. It is expected that she will return for classes after the Christmas break. Visual Communications instructor Sandy Carruthers is hopeful the accident will not impede her finishing the course on time. "That's the hope and the attempt," he says. Many of her classmates will be going on on-the job-training in February, but it remains to be seen whether Oberholzer will be able to go too. Carruthers says it won't really affect her if she doesn't go out of the school for training, she can complete the work in class. If the support she received from her classmates following her accident is any indication, there will be many people pulling for her when she returns.
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