When Anne Lamberson set out on a priority call shortly after 11 p.m. in September last year, she had little idea of the tragic turn her life was about to take.
Working as driver for a private New York ambulance company, the Derry-born woman enjoyed her job, helping people in need. She knew all about needing help; a few years before, her young son had died after a long illness. She worked hard at nights to spend time caring for her two-year-old daughter.
But when Ms Lamberson drove her ambulance to a busy intersection in Brooklyn's Midwood section, her life was about to change, forever tragically interwoven with that of another family.
As she passed a red light, her ambulance hit a car driven by Mrs Angela Igwe, a beautician who was heading home with her four young children.
The impact shunted Mrs Igwe's Nissan across the intersection. Three of Mrs Igwe's children died in the crash. Their critically injured mother managed to clamber from the wreckage to cry for help.
Within hours, Ms Lamberson was arrested at her home and charged with second-degree manslaughter. On Tuesday, she was sentenced to five years' probation. Still in counselling for trauma, she says she is punished daily by that night's events.
For days after the accident, television crews captured images of two destroyed families.
Distraught in handcuffs and her face streaked with tears, Ms Lamberson appeared on New York television screens being shepherded out of a police precinct by NYPD detectives. In Brooklyn, the media captured Ms Igwe, her jaw still wired and wearing a neck brace, leaving the hospital to attend the funerals of her three children.
Prosecutors charged that Ms Lamberson had acted recklessly enough to warrant the manslaughter indictment. She would stand trial, they said, and face a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted.
As the case slipped from the pages of New York newspapers, interest grew in Ireland, where the SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, had noted concern over the serious charges Ms Lamberson faced.
Free on $25,000 bail, Ms Lamberson again and again told of her remorse, and of her struggle to come to terms with the deaths of the three children. As the trial date approached, that suffering, it seems, was not lost on Ms Igwe. In her conversations with prosecutors, she said she believed Ms Lamberson should not go to jail. She had suffered enough.
Accepting a prosecution plea bargain, Ms Lamberson said she had pleaded guilty to avoid any possibility of being separated from her surviving child.
As the judge said on Tuesday, she has already sentenced herself to a life imprisoned by the memories of that night.