BUTTE — After almost two years, a Butte woman is frustrated and angry as she says she hasn’t received restitution from an accident in which a drunk driver smashed into her truck and totaled it while she was at home sleeping in her bed.
"I am darn angry. Darn angry, and very frustrated," says Annissa Hastie.
"At 1:36 in the morning on July 11th of 2024, my granddaughter and I heard a big bang and a loud commotion."
WATCH: Annissa Hastie's truck was totaled when a drunk driver traveling over 80 mph crashed into multiple vehicles outside her home in July 2024
Hastie says a drunk driver turned onto her street while traveling over 80 miles an hour and hit her truck and multiple vehicles before coming to a stop on the sidewalk in front of an apartment filled with college students.
"The officer said the only thing that saved those girls from him driving through that apartment complex was the impact on my truck," says Hastie.
The driver was charged with several misdemeanors and is currently in DUI court.
"He’s a habitual offender. A year before he got me, he did the same thing, only he drove into a woman’s house and almost hit her on her furniture," says Hastie.
Her truck is totaled, and she has been relying on a borrowed vehicle while she waits for restitution.
"Of course, the vehicle that he hit us in only had the strictest limits of liability. So, here’s eight vehicles totaled, and everybody’s fighting for a piece of $25,000 dollars when there’s over $300,000 dollars' worth of wreckage."
As a single grandmother living on disability and caring for five kids, Annissa says being without a roadworthy vehicle has impacted her life.
"It has cost me the ability to go to my neurosurgeons which are in Missoula and Helena. It hinders my ability to take care of my 84-year-old mother. I’m her sole care provider. I take care of my brother who has dementia. I’m borrowing his vehicle that is not highway worthy."
Hastie is sharing her story because she wants restitution, and she doesn’t want someone else to have to go through her experience.
"If it protects one other person, that’s what matters to me. You know, making sure that another family doesn’t have to go through this."
