Video shows 12-year-old girl struck by hit-and-run driver in NYC
CROTONA PARK EAST, Bronx (WABC) -- A 12-year-old girl crossing a Bronx street between cars was struck by vehicle that fled the scene, and the harrowing incident was caught on camera.
It happened just before 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 5, on Boone Avenue in the Crotona Park East section.
The video shows the girl, Nevaeh Joseph, running out between the parked cars before being struck head on by a dark-colored BMW sedan.
The girl rolls onto the hood and roof of the car, with what appears to be a shoe and her cell phone flying into the air.
She is then thrown to the ground while the car is still in motion.
Dray Smith is one of the good Samaritans who ran to her aid.
"I was just trying to tell the girl to stay down while I ran to the beauty salon to get towels, wet and dry, while I was also on the phone with EMS," he said. "I'm just glad she's OK."
Joseph suffered a gash to her cheek that required 40 stitches by a plastic surgeon, as well as injuries to her hand and back.
"She's traumatized and in a lot of pain from head to toe," mom Christine Cruz said. "She has medicine, she has to take antibiotics, and I have to forcefully get her up. I've been trying all morning, and I can't get her to come out here or to wake up."
The driver stopped momentarily, with the victim lying in the roadway, before fleeing the scene.
"Angry, very angry that someone could just leave a child like that and not stop and see what'd they'd done," Cruz said. "I'm wishing and hoping that he comes forward and find the kindness in his heart to apologize at least."
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
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