No, not me, but I read this article today about a girl paralysed after being hit by a car, and it reminded me of several of our favourite trolls.
I wonder if her story inspired them?
Or is the Guardian being trolled.
That’s an oddly written article, it’s like it’s written in the first person, but not. “Swimming costume” isn’t something I’ve ever heard in the states, so that’s not something she would say, but it’s something the author would say if she was speaking for her. Also things like “Driveways here aren’t like British ones” I can’t parse where ‘here’ is since it’s a British paper isn’t it? Unless she’s talking to a British reporter and she’s really familiar with Britain, but that’s a long shot and a strange thing to say. I think it’s just poorly written.
Also, I recall hearing, about a year ago, another very similar accident, I can’t recall what became of it, I’ll have to see if I can find it.
And yes, I did look to check the username when I saw the thread title.
Here it is.
http://www.wtae.com/2-Teens-Hit-By-Car-While-Sunbathing/-/9681798/12314928/-/kqwf87/-/index.html
I think we talked about it here as well.
I have to come back and apologise for my throw-away joke that maybe she was trolling the Guardian - looks like not only is she a real person, she’s started her own foundation to help other people affected, and fund research.
But I’d still be suspicious if someone claiming to be Cindy suddenly starts posting here 
Sunbathing on roads, railways - what is it with your teenagers, isn’t there enough green space over there? 
We really must raise awareness about suntanning in the streets and driveways when our relatives are about to come home. The count is up to…3!
And a red ribbon will be the symbol…with a treadprint.
Or maybe their threads inspired her father to run over her?
Yes, I am pretty confident that a girl from Georgia did not say “swimming costume” or call her mom “Mum”. 
However, this isn’t the first time that I have seen a British newspaper turn an American’s word choice into “Britspeak”. I remember running across an article interviewing Fergie (the singer, not the Duchess) where it quoted her as using the word “Mum” for mother and I am pretty skeptical that she said that. I guess they feel like it will make more sense to their audience if they do things like that. Good reminder to be wary about trusting newspaper reporting to get everything 100% correct.
But typing out mum/mom from what someone said is just a sort of transliteration. When I read “mom” my brain pronounces it as “mohm”, not “marm”, which would be my transliteration of what Americans say. So writing in BrE what she literally said, you would write “mum”, since you know what she said, she just pronounced it funnily.
Swimming costume/bathing suit (is that what you say?) and pavement/sidewalk are a different matter.
Luckily the research on why it’s a poor idea to sunbathe in places where cars drive will take 10, 15 minutes tops.
And if I didn’t already feel like a bad person for snickering as I thought of that, the actual laugh I got out of
sealed it.
Not the first time a reporter for the Grauniad has battered an article.
Somethings feels wrong to me. The entire article reads as if written by an English person: Mum, swimming costume (is that English English? sure isn’t USAian), back garden, 25 March.
But she has her father calling 911. I thought it was 999 or something like that in England.
Maybe I’m being overly suspicious. Someone up thread said they’d found some news article about this. But that 911 thing was the first thing I noticed when reading the article.
She also says the drives “over there” are bigger than in the UK, so it sounds as if they moved to the US. Because otherwise why would she compare the two?
But yeah, it’s weird it isn’t mentioned…