As it turns out, this was no date.
She started to realize all that when the group ended up at a mechanic’s garage on Bluewater Road on Albuquerque’s West Side, nowhere near the crest.
“I asked my friend to take me home,” Lechalk recalled. “She handed me a Fresca instead.”
The next thing Lechalk remembers is waking up in a hospital, bloodied and broken and confused. Whatever had been in that Fresca had knocked her out cold.
Slowly, she pieced together fragments of the night that changed her life. At some point, she learned, she was stuffed into a car and driven away. Near Coors and Central SW, she tumbled out of the car, and the car ran over her, injuring her arm and pelvis. A worker at a Shell gas station nearby saw it happen and helped the others get her back into the vehicle.
Getting through the COVID-19 pandemic mentally, emotionally and physically poses a great challenge for adults and children alike. But two New Mexico teachers are using curriculum to help their students process the changes around them.
“During this time especially, because adults are stuck at home, it can be stressful, it can be hard, you know, it gets hard some days for me,” teacher Rachel Montoya said. “It’s a lot of stress. It’s a lot of anxiety and frustration. As adults, we’re able to understand that we’re feeling this way. For kids, though, and schools that’s a little harder. They don’t understand why we have to stay inside, why they can’t see their friends.”