On a holiday week

9-year-old ran across Pine Hills Road, was struck by car

that brings families together, a Pine Hills mom is preparing to bury her 9-year-old daughter.

It’s the week of Thanksgiving, and Shanese Carr has to bury her 9-year-old daughter.

Just a week ago, Ariana Carr had designed T-shirts for the business she started with her 13-year-old sister. They called it Triple A Arts.

“They would go to the park on the weekend and sell her pictures,” Carr said Tuesday in-between tears.

Two days after designing the T-shirts, Carr received a call she would never forget.

While heading home from a Boys and Girls Club on Hernandes Drive near Pine Hills Road, Ariana was struck by a four-door Acura about 8 p.m. Thursday. The Mollie Ray Elementary School student was declared dead Sunday.

Ariana’s three siblings, who were with her at the time, said she had the green crosswalk signal. She was running across the street to wave down the bus to take them home, Carr said. But Florida Highway Patrol’s preliminary investigation tells a different story.

According to FHP Sgt. Kim Montes, witnesses said Ariana and another child ran across Pine Hills Road against the traffic light. They were not in the crosswalk.

The Orlando driver, 21-year-old Mi’Kell Berry, and two witnesses told troopers he had the green light. Another witness said Berry had a yellow light. But it’s not against the law to run a yellow light, Montes said.

“He [Berry] heard the bump,” Montes said. “He stopped about 150 feet from the point of collision, which is not far.”

One of Ariana’s siblings made it across the street, Montes said, but Ariana did not.

“We have no indication of speed. The story that he gave us is plausible with the evidence,” Montes said. “He never saw her.”

Berry was traveling north on Pine Hills Road in the left lane at the time of the crash, troopers said.

There are no traffic cameras at that intersection, Montes said. Ariana was a third-grader who loved singing, dancing and drawing, according to her mother.

“When he hit her, her heart

stopped,” Carr said. “He broke her neck. They told me she was pretty much brain-dead.”

Ariana was on life support at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children until Sunday, when she was pronounced dead.

Carr said her children took the bus home because her car recently broke down. She always met the children at the bus stop near their home. Montes said the Florida Department of Children and Families has been notified. It’s standard procedure, she added.

“It’s hard for kids and seniors to judge — especially at night when all you can see is headlights — how fast a car is approaching,” Montes said. “They need to cross at the appropriate place: a crosswalk.”

Carr said she’s still in shock from the death of her daughter.

“I was supposed to watch her grow up and accomplish all her dreams,” Carr said. “She was supposed to bury me, not me bury her.”