Lifetime bond begun in a Chinese orphanage is broken in an instant at Eden Prairie intersection

They came to the Twin Cities together — two baby girls among four in a group of adoptees from China.

From their birthplace in Anhui Province, Holly joined the Bergstrom family in Eden Prairie. Camryn and her family, the Masses, soon moved to the same city.

For the next 24 years, Holly Bergstrom and Camryn Masse were best friends. They went through school together, from kindergarten to graduation from Eden Prairie High School, and their bond held into young adulthood.

Then moments after sunset Saturday night, a close friendship that began 6,600 miles from their suburban American upbringing came to a tragic and abrupt end.

The two were in a car together while Masse was waiting on Flying Cloud Drive to turn left onto Anderson Lakes Parkway. A moment of anxiety connected to Bergstrom’s lifetime of cognitive disabilities overtook her in the back seat. She bolted into traffic and was struck by an SUV.

Masse, seated next to her boyfriend, looked in the rearview mirror of her SUV and saw Bergstrom on the pavement.

“I got out of my car” and then stopped for a moment before going to Holly on the pavement, Masse recalled Tuesday. “Then I picked her up and moved her to the median.”

After being taken to HCMC, Bergstrom died Sunday, a month shy of 25 years from when she arrived in America as Chunmei Huai, the name given to her at the orphanage.

Nancy Bergstrom, who adopted Holly when she was 10 months old, said she is telling her daughter’s story so people understand why she ran into traffic.

She coped with “mild cognitive disabilities and an anxiety disorder that was fairly severe,” Nancy Bergstrom said. “Those directly contributed to what she did.”

She said “a bunch of circumstances came together … and made her get out [of the vehicle] and run home to walk the dog,” Nancy Bergstrom said.

A police car’s siren nearby added to her mounting anxiety, and “in her heightened anxiety state,” Bergstrom said, “she jumped out of the car. ... She didn’t even run in the right direction.”

Bergstrom described Holly as high-functioning but said she “doesn’t have the full cognitive ability to assess risk. ... She didn’t fully understand the danger she was in.”

Holly’s mother said she wants the driver who hit her daughter to know she was not at fault.

“I wish I could talk to her,” Nancy Bergstrom said. “I feel sorry for her.”

On Sunday night, the day Holly Bergstrom died, Masse posted an ode to her friend on social media. “I lost my best friend,” it started. “I’m so lucky that we had full day of fun starting @9:30am - until 8:15pm. As usual, we were attached to the hip, and some call us thing 1 and thing 2.”

Masse wrote that Holly Bergstrom’s favorite teacher joined them on what they didn’t know would be their last day together as they drank coffee, visited a pet store, went to the beach, watched the Olympics and had dinner.

“I’m so grateful and honored I got to spend the entire day with her and [be the] last person to hold her prior to getting into the ambulance,” Masse shared. “I miss my partner in crime as many of our teachers called us. I know you’re in a good place now, Holly. We all love u.”