FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - A woman and her three children are all recovering after her car was struck and totaled in a hit-and-run crash.
The crash took place around 8 p.m. Thursday near the 1200 block of Northwest 19th Street.
Fallone Pinphinat said she had just left her home and was driving with her children when a person in an orange Dodge Charger hit her car from behind and pushed it into a truck ahead of her.
“I’m traumatized from it because I almost lost my kids, and my kids is all I have,” Pinphinat said.
Pinphinat’s BMW was completely destroyed, and her three children were taken to the hospital. One has since been released.
“I ended up on the truck and my son was completely out of it,” she said. “I had to take my son out the car.”
The driver behind the wheel of the Charger fled the scene.
Luckily, neighbor Sade Wilson, who works as a medical assistant at a doctor’s office, rushed outside to help.
“I heard the boom,” she said. “As I was coming out, I saw that the mom was taking out the child from out the car and he just really looked lifeless at one point.”
“My son like literally passed out. He didn’t have no type of consciousness, nothing,” said Pinphinat.
“Within a few seconds he like completely stopped breathing so once he stopped breathing I just started doing compressions, started CPR, and within like a minute and a half he gasped for air,” said Wilson.
While Wilson tried to keep the 5-year-old breathing, bystanders turned their attention to the other children.
“I was holding one of the kids and the other kid was like, ‘His arm is hurting,’ and that’s when he said his back was hurting,” said one man who asked to not be identified.
“I’m a mom of six and in my head, I’m like, ‘What if this was my child?'” said Wilson.
The man who helped the children described what happened.
“She opened his mouth and put the bag over his mouth and stuck the tube down his throat and she was doing chest compressions and we finally got a pulse,” the man said.
Pinphinat has a message for the driver responsible.
“The fact that you left, not knowing if we died or not, that’s really upsetting me,” she said. “I’m really pissed, honestly. I’m really pissed, and I hope you will be held accountable for your actions. You just risked three of my children. You are going to be found.”
Although she herself suffered minor injuries, her children were not as lucky.
“My baby, my 1-year-old, he’s bleeding from the nose. He has a black eye,” Pinphinat said.
Now she wants to know who the driver of the Charger is.
“It’s not gonna be OK. I’m not gonna sit around and let you get away with it,” she said.
Pinphinat hopes someone will see the damage on the Charger and call police.
“My baby, my baby… my kids are all I have, so I’m very upset that somebody could have done this to my kids and just drove off as if we were some kind of animals or some stuff,” she said.
If you have any information on this hit-and-run or the driver’s whereabouts, call Broward County Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS. Remember, you can always remain anonymous, and you may be eligible for a reward of up to $5,000.
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