TAYLORSVILLE, Utah -- A 7-year-old boy is in fair condition and suffered several broken bones Thursday after an auto-pedestrian crash near an elementary school in Taylorsville.
"When I first got over there, he wasn't moving," said Stacie Rollins, who heard the commotion after the crash and ran outside to see what was happening. "There was just a puddle of blood."
Police say SUV hit the boy around 3:30 p.m. near John C Fremont Elementary School, 4249 South Atherton Drive.
School had just gotten out, police said, and the 1st-grade student was walking with friends.
Rollins said a group had already surrounded the boy when she ran out to the scene, with people yelling, "He got hit! He got hit!."
"They just were telling him to stay down, 'You have to stay down because if you move, something else could happen because your head is bleeding,'" Rollins recounted.
She said the driver was on the phone with 911, saying "I didn't see him, I didn't see him."
Lt. Brian Lohrke of the Unified Police Department said witnesses reported seeing the boy run out into the street in an area where there was no crosswalk, and he was hit by a southbound vehicle.
He said witness reports indicate the driver was not speeding and was traveling accordingly for the school zone.
"The vehicle, the Dodge Durango, was doing what they were supposed to be doing and there was really nothing that the car could do," he explained.
He said he isn't sure what prompted the boy to run into the road.
While the student was initially listed in critical condition, police stated around 5:30 p.m. the child has been upgraded to fair condition and has some broken bones.
Lohrke said when school lets out for the day there is a lot of activity, and they try to keep everyone safe through crossing guards and crosswalk lights. However, he said, unfortunately sometimes accidents like this one happen. In this case, he said the child was not in the appropriate crosswalk area when he was hit.
Police initially stated the victim is 10 years old, but officials later corrected the boy's age to 7.
