Update: Woman Who Ran Over Friend Says 'I Didn't Mean To!'

The woman who ran over her friend — nearly killing her — while fleeing a Joliet house claimed she woke up to find the barrel of an assault rifle in her face and saId she was afraid for her life.

Rose Marta, 30, was still seemingly shaken Tuesday afternoon and said she had no intention of running her friend over hours earlier.

“I didn’t mean to!” Marta said, telling how she went to check on her 26-year-old friend after realizing she was pinned under the car.

“I pushed her hair back to see her face and there was blood all over her forehead,” Marta said.

Marta’s grievously injured friend was working as a caretaker for an ailing, 59-year-old man at a house on Mayfield Avenue. Marta said she, her caretaker friend and a man were hanging out at the house and fell asleep some time late Monday or early Tuesday.

Marta said she stayed at the house because her friend, who is pregnant, was doing drugs and she was fearful she might overdose.

“She was pregnant and she was really getting f---ed up with pills,” said Marta, who also planned to help her caretaker friend clean the house Tuesday so the homeowner could rent it out.

“I didn’t want to leave her,” she said. “I didn’t want her to overdose or anything.”

But about 4:30 a.m., the resident returned with another man and a woman, Marta said. He was armed with an assault rifle, she said, and she woke up with its barrel and her face.

Police said the man called his son for help after finding two strangers in the house with his caretaker.

Amidst the chaos of a physical altercation, screaming and yelling, Marta made a run for it and jumped in her car, she recalled. The police said she crashed into a parked vehicle before driving through a yard and running down her friend. Marta insists it was an accident.

The caretaker was pinned under the car, police said. Officers were able to lift the vehicle high enough to get her out.

The caretaker was taken to Presence St. Joseph Medical Center where it seemed she might die, police said. Her condition has since improved.

The woman suffered a broken pelvis and broken ribs, police said.

Marta said she was charged with driving under the influence for smoking marijuana the previous day. She insists she was not intoxicated.

“I don’t even drink,” Marta said, questioning the validity of the charge against her.

“Just because I smoked the day before?” she said, adding, “I’m not going to stay high all day long.”