SURVIVING HIT AND RUN
Saydie Mulder sits in her father’s SUV wearing a medical walking boot while parked at the Kingsville intersection where the 15-year-old was struck in a hit and run Friday night. “She’s more upset about being left there,” Nathan Mulder said.
A Kingsville father is hoping the public can help find the driver of a vehicle that struck his teenage daughter and left the scene without checking to see how badly she was hurt.
“It could have been anybody’s kid,” said Nathan Mulder, whose 15-year-old daughter, Saydie, was injured by a white SUV near downtown Kingsville Friday night.
“Just to leave somebody there? It’s not right,” he said.
OPP said the incident happened on Friday, shortly before 8 p.m., at the intersection of Division Street North and King Street in Kingsville.
Mulder said his daughter was crossing King Street on her way to a friend’s house when she was hit by a vehicle that was turning onto King Street from Division Street.
The SUV ran over Saydie’s right foot and knocked her to the ground. As she struggled to get up, the vehicle stopped momentarily then drove off without further involvement.
Saydie contacted family members, who took her to a hospital for treatment.
Mulder was at work when he received the call that his daughter had been hurt.
“I was on my forklift and someone came up and said, ‘You have a call on the office phone.’ I go to answer the phone, and my fiancee tells me, ‘Saydie got hit by a car.’ I just dropped the phone and rushed home,” Mulder said.
“I get home and they were at the hospital. I was running around the house going, ‘Where is everybody?’ I didn’t take time to look at my phone or think or nothing like that. My first instinct was to get to my daughter.
“Thank God it wasn’t anything life-threatening.”
The emergency department didn’t find a fracture, but Saydie’s right foot has become heavily swollen and she’s wearing a medical walking boot. She’s also bruised and scraped from the fall.
“She’s doing pretty good. She’s a little banged up. It could have been so much worse ... her shoe has tire marks,” Mulder said.
“She’s more upset about being left there. The fact that somebody did this. At the hospital, she bust out in tears and said, ‘I’m so disappointed in my community.’ ”
Since the incident occurred, Mulder has been visiting and talking to businesses in the area, hoping to have a look at surveillance camera images of the suspect vehicle.
One store recording shows the white SUV was likely a new Ford Explorer. Mulder’s daughter said the vehicle looked like it had a young male driver and a female passenger.
Mulder said he wants the people who were in the vehicle to come forward to police.
“It’s the human thing to do. I’d tell them, take a look in the mirror, and think if it was one of your loved ones,” he said. “People make mistakes, but do what’s right: You left a girl on the side of the street.”
Anyone who can help in identifying this vehicle and its driver is encouraged to call Kingsville OPP at 519-733-2345.
Anonymous tips can be made via Crime Stoppers at 519-258-8477 or catchcrooks.com.