One 17-year-old girl is dead and another two teenagers injured following a fatal one-car traffic accident in Louisiana. According to troopers from the Louisiana State Police, the car accident occurred shortly after 8:00 p.m. on I-12.

Investigators have hypothesized based on statements made by the vehicle's surviving occupants that the inexperienced driver may have turned around while driving causing the vehicle to drift to the left. It is then speculated that she then over-corrected, causing the vehicle to spin out of control, causing the car to cross the highway and fly off of its right side. As the car entered the tree line, the vehicle's driver side door was smashed by a tree.

Although she and her two passengers were wearing seat belts, the driver died at the scene of the crash. The passengers, ages 18 and 16, were sent to nearby hospitals to receive treatment for moderate injuries.

Police report that the driver reached into the backseat moments before the crash, which likely caused her to lose control of the vehicle and swerve off the road. A spokesperson for the Louisiana State Police explained, "It was a minor distraction, for that second, that caused the driver to drift left. The severity of that collision was not survivable."

Upon hearing of the victim's death, her friends and family lamented the loss of a girl they say spent her life helping the community. The girl's foster parents say they took the girl into their homes after learning that she aspired to receive a college degree. The girl was ambitious, they explained, joining a number of student organizations and doing well in school. Her foster mother explained, "She was the one everybody expected would make it."

Source: Nola.com, "St. Tammany car crash killed promising Ponchatoula High student, ROTC cadet," Ramon Antonio Vargas, Jan. 31, 2012