This browser does not support the Video element.
MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) - An 11-year-old Minneapolis boy was seriously injured when he was hit by a van on his way to school Thursday morning.
“All I heard was he was hit by a car and I’m like, 'I have to get to him now,'” the boy’s mother Marie Holmes said.
They are words no parent wants to hear. She received a call telling her that her son, Jeriamiah, was at the intersection of 7th Street and Olson Memorial Highway in North Minneapolis when he was hit by a van on his way to school.
“He did everything right,” his mother said. “He did everything I told him—you wait, you walk—everything you tell him to do and he still gets hit?”
To make matters worse, the driver fled, leaving Holmes in the hospital with serious wounds on his face. He has broken bones and injuries to his spine, lungs, neck, jaw and head.
“This is crazy to me that I’m sitting here in the hospital with my son. Nothing is worse than seeing your kid on oxygen, unable to move,” Holmes said.
Witnesses say when Jeriamiah was struck by the van, the driver didn’t attempt to stop or slow down. The vehicle, which belongs to a business eventually turned up in New Brighton. It’s still unclear who was behind the wheel.
“I wouldn’t be half as angry if he would have stopped,” his mother continued.
Security cameras helped police identify the vehicle, Holmes said. However, authorities have yet to disclose the business the vehicle belongs to.
“Come forward, own up to it. You really hurt my kid,” said Holmes. “How heartless are you not to stop? How do you sleep at night?”
Jeriamiah is showing signs of progress, but the accident is taking both a physical and an emotional toll on him.
When asked how he is doing, Jeriamiah said, “It just sucks—I can’t go to school, play with my friends and do what I want… so not so good.”
Now Jeriamiah’s mother is concerned about what could be a long road to recovery.
“I just haven’t been here long enough; I don’t get state assistance, so I have to do this because my son has to get well,” the mother of seven said while pleading for the hit-and-run driver to turn themselves in. “Own up to it, help me pay for this—you did this to him.”