FAIRFIELD, Ohio -- Christi Lester spent long days after a hit-and-run driver struck her 10-year-old daughter, Mahayla, afraid she would need to plan for a funeral.
"She had to have immediate brain surgery," Lester said. "They told me to wait outside. We had to wait for the counselor and the chaplain to come in. That was just an awful moment."
Mahayla, a fifth grader at Fairfield West Elementary School, survived the Super Bowl Sunday hit with a fractured skull, a broken leg and a fresh new buzz cut.
Her cast means maneuvering around her home is more difficult than it used to be, but she will be ready to visit her friends and classmates for a few hours Wednesday and to begin physical rehabilitation next week.
The only thing she and her family want now is justice. The driver who hit her never stopped, even as the impact sent Mahayla's body rolling over the hood, according to her 13-year-old brother, William.
The siblings had been trying to cross Southgate Boulevard near their home when a white sports car with blue headlights slammed into her, he said.
"I was a little bit in front of her," he said. "The car started speeding down, so I ran and I thought she was right behind me."
She wasn't fast enough.
"My first immediate instinct was, ‘This can't be happening,'" Christi Lester said of the scene she discovered outside. "I ran out there, and there she was. Just lying there. I was just terrified.
"Every day, I am angry about what happened."
Fairfield Police said Tuesday they had received several tips connected to the incident but needed more. Anyone with information about a white sports car with blue tail lights that might have been in the Southgate Boulevard area on Super Bowl Sunday should call police at 513-829-8201.
