A Washington state woman who avidly tweets local news as it unfolds in her hometown of Vancouver was live-tweeting a fatal car crash Wednesday before learning that her husband was a victim.
It began at 2:11 p.m. PST when Caran Johnson retweeted the Columbian Metrodesk’s coverage about the accident, keeping her followers updated.
At first Johnson was critical of the incident:
But soon after learning about the fatality, Johnson began to worry.
She began tweeting at Trooper William Finn, a spokesman with the Washington State Patrol who was at the scene of the crash, to see if he had descriptions of the cars involved. They had interacted online before regarding traffic incidents and once exchanging the recipe for a low-carb pizza.
“Immediately, I went into overdrive mode and I stopped tweeting the whole thing,” Finn told CNN. While he would normally tweet out an image of the wreck, this time was an exception. “I didn’t want someone to find out over Twitter that their husband passed away. I didn’t want her to find out that way. That is a hard thing to go through.”
Johnson continued tweeting her concern:
And finally, at 3:50 pm, Johnson confirmed the worst.
Johnson thanked followers offering condolences and assured them that she is surrounded by family. Even in her time of mourning, she is still helping spread breaking news to her community: early Thursday morning she retweeted pictures of a missing infant.