A hit-and-run driver is still on the loose after plowing past a stop sign in front of a 9-year-old girl’s house, hurtling into the yard and striking the young girl, severely injuring her.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, LaDerihanna Holmes is still in critical condition after the horrifying incident that was captured on Friday evening by surveillance footage.
“They were right there among us,” Charlette Bolton, LaDerihanna’s mother, said at a press conference Monday. “They didn’t look for my baby. They didn’t look down for my baby.”
The collision left LaDerihanna with a fractured skull, broken pelvic bone and several cuts and other internal injuries.
According to the report, LaDerihanna and an 11-year-old friend who lives in the same neighborhood were playing, when the 2017 Ford Fusion came into view, barely missing a stop sign in front of her house. The car continued its dangerous path across the lawn before hitting LaDerihanna and slamming into the house.
The little girl was pinned between the vehicle and the rubble from the house, leaving family members to fear the worst.
“We heard a deafening sound … I knew something was majorly wrong,” Bolton said.
Bolton said her daughter was unresponsive, but family members performed CPR and she kept a strong pulse despite her serious injuries.
Moments after the crash, a person is seen running away from the scene.
Another man, this time in a yellow shirt, is then seen walking around, going through the car to grab something from inside the vehicle, before running away.
“It was cold. It was very cold,” Bolton said of the men.
LaDerihanna’s father in the mean time, sped her to a local hospital, making sure to keep an eye on her the whole way.
“I drove with one hand the whole way,” Derryl Holmes said, “and I made sure she had a heartbeat the whole way there.”
“[The car] hit her head-on, and it didn’t just hit her, it knocked her through a brick wall,” the family’s attorney L. Chris Stewart said. “It is an absolute miracle that she survived this.”
The young child will need to learn to walk again, but family members are just grateful that she’s alive.
DeKalb police Major Jerry Lewis said that they had “good leads” on the incident, but arrests have not been made.
Police have identified the owner of the car, who said she was at work at the time of the collision and that her boyfriend had been driving it.
However, family members do not believe the boyfriend was driving at the time of the crash, as both of the individuals who fled appeared to be teenagers.
Meanwhile, the family is pleading with the persons responsible to step forward.
“I’m angry. I’m hurt,” the child’s father added. “Because for them to just walk away … they know they hit my child.”
A GoFundMe has been launched to help with LaDerihanna’s medical expenses and has raised more than $39,000.