9-Year-Old Girl Was Playing In Her Front Yard When A Speeding Car Slammed Into Her; Now Cops Are Seeking The Driver

A Georgia family is begging the driver and passenger of a car that blew through a stop sign and barreled into a 9-year-old girl playing in her front yard to turn themselves in.

The black sedan only came to a stop after it slammed into the family’s home, causing an impact Friday evening so significant it resembled an earthquake.

The dramatic crash striking LaDerihanna Holmes was captured on the family’s surveillance footage, which they released to the media in the hopes of identifying the driver.  

In this undated photo provided by attorney Chris Stewart shows LaDerihanna Holmes. Holmes was seriously injured after a car careened across her yard, hitting her before hitting her home in Lithonia, GA., Friday March 31, 2019. Photo: Chris Stewart/AP

“Y’all thought my baby was dead. Y’all didn’t look down at my baby one time, and I want you to turn yourselves in,” the victim’s mother, Charlette Bolton, told the Associated Press.

Bolton said after the crash she ran outside to see her daughter laying still on the ground, pinned by the vehicle. Bolton’s 12-year-old son and another man at the scene performed CPR until her mother could feel a heartbeat and her father, Derryl Holmes, was able to rush her to the hospital.

“I drove with one hand the whole way and I made sure she had a heartbeat the whole way there,” Holmes said, according to Atlanta Journal Constitution.

In this video frame grab made available by attorney Chris Stewart, an out-of-control car is seen before it hits LaDerihanna Holmes, 9, as she plays in her front yard Friday, March 29, 2019 in Lithonia, Ga. The driver is still at large. Photo: Chris Stewart/AP

LaDerihanna suffered a fractured skill and a broken pelvic bone in three places. The young girl’s right heart value was also leaking blood.

“She’s so tiny. She’s only 45 to 50 pounds,” Bolton said. “I just don’t know how she made it.”

While the avid cheerleader is recovering in the hospital, investigators are still searching for the driver of the car, who fled on foot along with the passenger after the crash.

This video frame grab made available by attorney Chris Stewart shows the passenger of a car flee after it hit LaDerihanna Holmes, 9, as she was playing in her front yard Friday, March 29, 2019 in Lithonia, Ga. The driver is still at large. Photo: Chris Stewart/AP

DeKalb Police Maj. Jerry Lewis said Monday night that although they had “good leads” they had yet to make an arrest in the case, according to the local paper.

Investigators were able to identify the owner of the car, who said she had been at work at the time of the crash. She said left the car with her boyfriend, who is in his 30s, but the surveillance footage appears to have captured a driver that looks to be a teen.

LaDerihanna Holmes has now begun physical therapy to learn to walk again.

“(The car) hit her head-on, and it didn’t just hit her, it knocked her through a brick wall,” the family’s attorney L. Chris Stewart said. “It is an absolute miracle that she survived this.”

The family has set up a GoFundMe account to help with medical expenses.