A Sad Post with an Undecided Ending -- What would YOU do?

I need to write his as a sad "coda" to today's earlier update post.

Something very unfortunate happened on Thursday. Our car, my blue Prius (which my husband jokingly calls "Blue Cloud," nuvem azul in Portuguese), broke down with my parents in it, in Maryland.

The whole thing was crazy because I was in town with the kids driving a shift gear car around while on the phone, and having to go to Costco to buy pizza for the guests and my mom & her friend were face-timing us and then calling every few minutes while I was with Geico on the phone trying to sort out the situation. Good thing Kelvin has a phone and could talk to my mom & their friend while I talked to Geico.

My parents wouldn't leave the car and stayed in it for FIVE HOURS until the tow truck arrived. People stopped to try to help them, it was an adventure... (I haven't even heard all the many stories they have). They were stuck on top of an overpass. I deeply regret having allowed them to sit there (while their friends went home -- they could have just gone there) uselessly, but I had guests to cook for and entertain and didn't insist they leave the car behind while the tow truck was on its way. The only good thing was that my mom walked to the Toyota Dealership (VERY CLOSE to where the car broke, just down the street) & checked the car in, giving all the necessary info. (In retrospect I should have told them to have their friends pick them up after that).

And yesterday (after Toyota worked on the car all day -- diagnostic alone is $500) we found out what the problem was/IS. My dad accidentally put diesel in the car. :-(

Fixing it costs more than half of what the car is worth. 2,400 (worth -- in perfect condition, 4K).

Please tell me, what would you do?? Ditch the car? Fix it? Would it even work OK and pass inspection afterwards? -- K read that the catalytic converter can get damaged. We TOTALLY can do without it for now and for a while because we bought a mini-van to drive around with my parents & have a Hyundai Accent. We could also fix it and try to sell it. Or fix it & keep it 'till it dies. What should we do?

My parents are understandably devastated and want to pay for everything. But, what is the best course of action?

I'm just very sad, especially because I didn't want this to have happened to my parents, they've been having such a GREAT visit with us (apart from the one day my mom felt sick). We'll get over it, but right now it's hard. Any thoughts are appreciated.

:-(