Ashanti Bowers and a friend had just treated themselves to frozen yogurt and were crossing Holabird Avenue when her world was turned upside down.
"She's a 13-year-old girl. She's very petite. She dances,” said her sister, Kayla Jones. “It all happened out of nowhere, and from her words, she said she saw the red car when she was running and she doesn't remember getting hit. All she remembers is being in the hospital."
The car sent Ashanti some 10 feet into the air before she crashed to the ground, broken and tattered, as her friend looked on helplessly.
Police are now trying to track down the car that struck her.
"This vehicle is a red Mercedes,” said Cpl. John Wachter of the Baltimore County Police Department. “It was being driven by a white male and there was a white female passenger in the car. This vehicle also had 1812 tags and should have some damage to the front hood."
Paramedics transported Ashanti to Johns Hopkins Children's Center with multiple brakes and fractures in her hip, along with bruises and scrapes all over her body.
A seventh grader at Holabird Middle School, Ashanti is scheduled to have surgery to place pins in her hip on Monday before she can begin a long road to recover in hopes of resuming her dancing.
And while her family can only speculate on why the car hit her, they say there's no excuse for the driver speeding away not knowing whether she would live or die.
"He kept going. People say that he turned in here,” said Jones, as she motioned to a nearby parking lot. “People are saying they tried to stop him, but he just kept on going... kept going, and it's stuff like that that really breaks my heart that someone can be that heartless especially the female in the passenger seat. She's just as heartless and she's just as guilty."
If you have any information on the damaged, red Mercedes or its driver, you can call police at 410-307-2020.
Ashanti's family and friends are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
