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Woman tells police she ‘felt a bump’ after running over two-year-old boy in West Jordan

Posted at 9:36 PM, Sep 09, 2018
and last updated 2018-09-10 00:19:20-04

WEST JORDAN, Utah -- A two-year-old boy is lucky to be alive after being hit by a car while he was playing with his brother in their West Jordan neighborhood.

“It really shocked me,” said Marie Petersen, recalling the neighborhood news she heard Friday night.

In Peterson’s West Jordan neighborhood, kids are the norm.

“I see them all the time when they come home from school,” she said. “Kids running around, playing."

Unfortunately, so are careless drivers.

“It’s crazy, they don’t slow down, they don’t stop, they don’t look where they’re going,” said Petersen. “It’s dangerous for kids to play around."

Friday afternoon, it was more of the same.

“Two brothers an eight-year-old and a two-year-old were outside playing,” said Officer Scott List with the West Jordan Police Department.

List said a 31-year-old woman was driving in the Countrywood Condominiums parking lot when the unthinkable happened.

“She says that she’s driving along and she felt a bump,” said List. “And as she looked in the mirror to see what she’d gone over, she saw the 2-year-old laying in the road.”

“The car actually completely ran over the two-year-old,” List added.

Marie Petersen only remembers hearing “a lot of noise and commotion.”

Police said the woman that hit the child started getting out of her car, but a neighbor came out and took the boys to their house, so she left.

“She didn’t quite know what to do,” List said.

For a while, everyone around thought the two-year-old was fine.

“At that point, I don’t think there were any signs that anything was wrong,” said List.

But he wasn’t.

“Later on the parents noticed some signs,” List said.

An ambulance ride, a life flight, and two hospitals later, List said: “The kid was not doing very well.”

The boy was in critical condition.

“The child has several internal injuries, at first they didn’t seem as bad as they actually were,” said List.

Now leaving police have been left to try and find answers.

“Was there an obvious injury?” List said. “Were the parents in a place where they couldn’t have done anything? Were they in a place where they should have been somewhere else and able to prevent this?”

As for the driver, it doesn’t look like she’ll face any charges.

“It did happen on private property, which limits what we can charge at least traffic-wise, and she did call into us without us trying to find her and so that takes away a lot of charges as well,” said List.

“Obviously, there wasn’t any intention, so what we’ll kind of look at is ‘was this preventable?’” List added.

Police said the two-year-old is in stable condition, but he will remain in intensive care for at least two weeks.