The new school year got off to a disastrous start for a young Florida girl who was accidentally run over by her mother’s SUV during morning drop-off, officials said.
The 12-year-old girl was hit around 7:45 a.m. after she dropped her backpack and some of her belongings rolled under her mother’s Lincoln Navigator outside Booker Middle School in Sarasota, Fla., Highway Patrol Trooper Kenn Watson told ABC Action News.
Unbeknownst to her mother, the preteen crawled under the SUV on her hands and knees to gather her things as her mother began to drive away.
“She stopped immediately when she heard her child screaming,” Watson told the station.
The girl was airlifted to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg after the freak accident, Action News reported. As of Monday night, she is still in critical condition, according to Fox 35.
Neither she nor her mother were identified.
“Here we are, day one, and we’ve already had a tragedy,” Watson told Action News.
“We hope this doesn’t happen again, but we have to remember to have good spatial awareness when you’re anywhere around a school zone and certainly when you’re letting your child out of your vehicle.”
The school offered counselors to students who followed the gruesome scene, and Principal Lashawn Frost urged parents to “follow the designated drop-off procedures,” Action News reported, citing a message he sent out to parents after the incident.
“This is a tragedy that could have been 100% avoided by simply paying a little more attention and not being in a hurry,” Watson said, according to the station.