CHILLIWACK, B.C. -- An 11-year-old was riding home from his first day of school when a driver in a dark-coloured minivan struck him at a crosswalk, an incident partially captured on dash cam video.
It happened at the corner of Southlands and Elm drives Thursday afternoon.
Yaritza Saunders said her son has cuts and bruises, but overall, it appears like the injuries are minor.
Still, she said she's furious the driver left the scene without ensuring her son, Sebastian, was OK and had a way back home, since the bike was damaged from the crash.
"That is insane. How could you hit a kid in a bike and not call the parents or the police or ambulance or anybody else to check on him?" questioned Saunders. "Pull your car over and check on the kid because you just hit him and threw him into the ground, which is really hard pavement. He's hurt and he's crying and he's upset -- I am very upset about that."
Sebastian's older brother, Ethan, said the driver rolled down his window to ask how the boy was doing and when he replied, "fine," the driver took off.
"He didn't stay for very long. Me and my friend had to get (Sebastian's) bike on the sidewalk just to get out of the way. The bike was in horrible condition," Ethan said.
Dash cam video from a parked car shows Sebastian was riding on the sidewalk and was approaching a crosswalk where the driver has a stop sign.
The driver approached the intersection and it appears he failed to make a full stop before hitting the boy.
The actual impact isn't in frame of the video but a loud bang can be heard and the driver is seen stopping abruptly.
Based on the video, it appears the driver remained on scene for 12 seconds before making a right onto Southlands Drive.
Area resident Caren Law said her husband heard the crash and the pair went outside to check on Sebastian.
"I would have never have left -- that's cold-hearted. It's a kid; you could tell he was shaken up. When I got there, a minute later, he was crying and he could barely talk," Law said.
Since the driver was nowhere to be found, she went through her parked car's dash cam footage and saw it captured most of the incident.
Law said she constantly observes drivers blowing through that stop sign, adding even though the area is in a school zone, people don't seem to slow down.
"This whole area needs to be a school zone; throw speed bumps in, make sure people slow down, they have to do something…there are schools around here, there are lots of kids," she said.
Even though Sebastian has minor injuries, his mother said he's been traumatized by the incident.
"He's very anxious about it so he'd rather not talk about it until he is ready to do it, so he's said nothing about it," she said.
Chilliwack RCMP confirmed to CTV News they are investigating the incident as a possible hit-and-run.
