She died in a horrific crash and her best friend was critically injured. Why Abbi Bischoff’s mom says it was ‘1,000% preventable.’

REXBURG — One year ago Wednesday, Mindi Bischoff received the worst call of her life.

Her daughter Abbi Bischoff, who had just celebrated her 20th birthday, was gone and Abbi’s best friend, Skye Hackman, was fighting for her life in a hospital room across the country.

“Our last words to each other were I love you and I will be forever grateful for that,” Bischoff says through tears. “I just kept thinking that it can’t be real.”

Bischoff has never spoken publicly about what happened on Aug. 21, 2023, and Hackman has spent the last year grieving while wondering how things would be different had an elderly driver not been behind the wheel of her car that day.

“That accident was 1,000% preventable and should not have happened,” Bischoff says.

Abbi and Skye – Forever Friends

To say Abbi loved life is an understatement. The Madison High School graduate made friends wherever she went, her nieces and nephews adored her and she had just been accepted into the Pensacola State College Cosmetology program in Florida.

“I just remember telling my five other kids that she was so happy,” Bischoff recalls.

Abbi and Hackman met playing softball in high school and became inseparable working and living together in West Yellowstone over the summer of 2023.

Last August, Abbi asked Hackman if she would help her move from Idaho to Florida and they planned an unforgettable road trip.

“We decided we would stop in Nashville on our way because she was going to be turning 20 and she wanted to be in Nashville waking up there on her birthday,” Hackman tells EastIdahoNews.com. “We pulled into Nashville, Tennessee at 12:18 a.m.”

They made their way to the Sunshine State and spent several days on the beach, eating Abbi’s favorite Nothing Bundt Cake, and exploring her new home.

“She also had a sister and her family that lived there so she was excited to be only minutes away knowing that she was on her own but being able to visit family if she got homesick,” Bischoff explains.

After a few days, Hackman was set to fly home to her husband in Idaho. Before they left for the airport, Abbi called her mom.

“The phone rang at work and I said, ‘I better let you go.’ She said, ‘Mom, I’m so excited! I have so many things to tell you and as soon as I drop Skye off, we can talk as I’m driving back,” Bischoff says.

Abbi and Hackman took a photo together – not knowing it would be their last and Abbi added a caption that said, ‘Last one for a while.’ They hugged and prepared to leave.

“She said, ‘I really hate goodbyes’ and I said me too. She said, ‘This isn’t a goodbye. You’ll feel me,'” Hackman recalls. “I remember walking my suitcase out to the car and that’s the last thing I remember from that day.”

The crash

Abbi was driving her car and Hackman was in the passenger seat. A few minutes into their drive, they stopped at a red light when, out of nowhere, a Jeep slammed into them.

The diagram below from the Florida Highway Patrol shows what happened. Abbi and Hackman were in vehicle number 2. The driver of the Jeep, number 1, not only hit the young women but caused a chain reaction crash with four other vehicles.

The speed limit on the road is 45 mph. The crash report shows the driver of the Jeep, a 76-year-old woman, was going 60 mph and was “inattentive.”

“At 12:03 p.m., an alert popped up on my phone saying a crash had been detected on Abbi’s car. I was so startled I immediately called her and there was no answer. I immediately called Skye because if Skye’s with her, she’ll know what happened. No answer,” Bischoff says.

Hackman doesn’t remember much except a woman named Donna standing outside the car and yelling, “Can you move?”

“She said, ‘Do you have a phone number I can call’ and from memory, I said my mom’s phone number and my husband’s phone number,” Hackman says. “I had been thrown into Abbi’s seat and my head was pinned between her back and her seat. I was down by the bottom of her seat and my legs were above me.”

Bischoff and her other children were frantically communicating and those in Idaho agreed to meet at her son’s house in Idaho Falls. Her son-in-law in Florida, who Abbi and Hackman had visited that week, rushed to the scene of the crash. He was told the victims had been taken to three hospitals so he went to be with Hackman, hoping Abbi was there too, while Bischoff and other family members contacted other hospitals.

“We kept calling and calling and none of them had an Abbigail Bischoff,” Bischoff explains. “About 3 o’clock that day, I started to think, ‘I wonder, I wonder.’ I turned to my daughter-in-law and said, ‘Do you think she’s dead?’ and she said not to think that way.”

Hackman was in horrible shape. She had two brain bleeds, both collar bones and eight ribs were broken, along with part of her back and left shoulder blade. Both of her lungs were punctured, she had cuts everywhere and glass was embedded in her skin.

Back in Idaho, after painfully waiting hours for any information, Bischoff finally received a call.

“It’s the strangest moment when they say, ‘I’m corporal so and so from the Florida State Highway Patrol. There’s no easy way to tell you this but your daughter didn’t make it,'” Bischoff says through tears. “I can’t explain what that feels like. It felt like my whole chest was caving in and I truly couldn’t breathe.”

Abbi was declared dead at 12:20 p.m. and Hackman was clinging to life. Both of their families immediately flew to Florida and when they landed, Bischoff went to Hackman’s hospital room.

“We always talked about how they had been sisters from another life. I walked in and she was not able to speak and the look on her face was anguish knowing that her friend was gone,” Bischoff says.

Hackman remembers waking up and being told her best friend didn’t make it. She couldn’t stop crying and then fell asleep.

The crash happened on a Monday and Abbi’s family decided to hold her funeral on Saturday in Idaho. Hackman was determined to be there but there was no way she could fly with brain bleeds and punctured lungs. Plus doctors weren’t sure when she’d be able to leave the hospital.

Miraculously, she was released Thursday night and her husband and mom drove straight from Florida to Idaho. They arrived three hours before the funeral began, which was the same day as Bischoff’s birthday.

So many people came, including a woman who had made bracelets for Abbi and Hackman months before the tragedy. The thin chain bracelets didn’t have clasps and were meant to be worn forever.

Abbi’s came off in the crash and Hackman’s was cut off at the hospital, so the kind woman visited the funeral, put one on Abbi’s wrist and gave one to her best friend.

“She was walking out the door and stopped and said, ‘Would you like one of these?’ And immediately, I could hear Abbi saying, ‘Mom, it’s your birthday,'” Bischoff says. “I had forgotten it was my birthday but I got the present on my birthday that she wanted me to have.”

Discovering what happened

After the funeral, Abbi’s and Hackman’s families began to learn more about what happened. Officers told Bischoff there had been reports of an erratic driver several minutes before the crash but police were unable to get to the woman in time.

Bischoff recalls her first meeting with a Florida Highway Patrol investigator.

“She told us the lady that had been driving – her husband said she had dementia but she seemed fine that morning when she left,” Bischoff says. “That was like a punch to the stomach. She should not have been driving.”

When Hackman learned the driver had dementia, she “started to get angry. I was angry at her husband for not taking the keys because this was very preventable.”

Not only that, but the driver had a minimal car insurance policy. It only paid up to $10,000 per victim with $20,000 being the maximum amount paid out per incident, meaning $20,000 was split up among the nine people in the five vehicles that were hit.

Hackman’s medical bills alone were over $400,000 and she only received $1,900 from the driver’s insurance company.

Bischoff waited to see if charges would be filed against the driver who caused the crash. She was told there would be an update in February, but officers never called. Finally, last month, she met with investigators and was told the prosecuting attorney would not be filing charges and the incident was ruled an accident.

“(The officer) kept referring to it as a medical event. I finally said, ‘Would you please stop calling it a medical event. Dementia isn’t an event. It’s a way of life,'” Biscoff says.

EastIdahoNews.com contacted the Florida Highway Patrol with questions about the case but a spokesperson referred us to the crash report. According to court records, the driver has not been charged and has never contacted Abbi’s or Hackman’s families.

“We found out this woman had been in the same hospital as Skye but there has been nothing. No I’m sorry, no nothing,” Bischoff says.

Hackman adds, “I do not want a penny from it. I don’t care – I’ll pay the bills. (I want) to get an I’m sorry or my wife shouldn’t have been driving – anything like that.”

Hoping for change

Drivers with dementia are three times more likely to become involved in traffic accidents, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Some states require those who have been diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s to take a driving test (Idaho is not one), but Bischoff believes more needs to be done.

“I would love to see legislation that requires doctors to report dementia to the DMV,” Bischoff says.

She and Hackman would also like insurance companies to be required to pay for driving services for elderly people with memory issues.

Another important lesson they’ve learned from this tragedy is the importance of having critical conversations with aging loved ones about when it’s time to put away the car keys.

“People think that taking away their car keys is taking away their freedom. You’re actually preserving their freedom and you’re preserving the freedom of everyone else on the road,” Bischoff says. “Decide with your parents before they get to that point where they’re going to fight you on it.”

Abbi was buried in the Annis Butte Cemetery. Hackman drives by every day but Bischoff moved to Texas shortly after her daughter died.

A few weeks ago, Abbi’s gravestone was finally finished and installed on her burial plot. Bischoff had never seen it, until a few weeks ago.

She was overcome with emotion looking at the beautiful white marble and the phrase “see you at sunset” engraved on the back.

Abbi loved sunsets and constantly sent her mom and friends photos of sunsets wherever she was. Although the sun set way too early on her life, her mom and best friend hope there is some purpose in it.

“If her accident can bring any kind of change to helping people make better decisions with their aging loved ones, then her life was worth every minute of the 20 years she was here. And it’s all ok,” Bischoff says.