JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Tears poured from the eyes of a heartbroken mother as she described the moments she and her 10-year-old son were nearly killed after being hit by a car earlier this week.
“I thought I lost my son, I really did,” Rachel Pannell says.
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Pannell spoke only to Action News Jax, and says she and her son Jett Taylor were struck in a hit-and-run crash while crossing the street at a bus stop on Hyde Park Road.
Jett is awake in the hospital and speaking but doesn’t know what happened, but she remembers everything.
Pannell said like every school day, she was waiting for her son Jett at the bus stop on Hyde Road and Cherry Laurel Drive. They looked both ways twice when crossing the street and she said there were no cars coming. In that moment, she says she could hear a car speeding.
“I grabbed him by his jacket and right when I grabbed him, the car hit us and we flew.”
“The second she hit us, I flew, he flew, and he flew a lot farther,” she said. “I instantly tried to get up and was screaming ‘Jett!,’ but I couldn’t move. I started to crawl and I half-stumbled to him, dropped to my knees and I thought he was dead.”
Police say the driver didn’t stop for the bus, and the impact of the crash almost killed them both. Pannell has a broken clavicle with plenty of scratches and bruises. Jett was bleeding from his brain and has severe head bruises, scrapes and many other injuries she didn’t want to get into detail about.
It took over 24 hours after the crash for Jett to wake up and begin speaking again. Parnell says Jett’s recovery is going to be a long journey.
“I want to be so happy, but I’m still so scared,” she said.
While Pannell was able to go home from the hospital, she went back for her son and hasn’t left his bedside.
She describes her Bayview Elementary fourth grader as a “momma’s boy” and say the two are inseparable.
The search continues for the driver of the green sedan. Police say it was a woman with red hair. Parnell says she wants the driver behind bars.
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“Turn yourself in,” she said. “You should just do the right thing.”
Pannell says she never wants to come back to the bus stop. The mother of two says her boys and family are her everything, saying the progress Jett has made so quickly is simply a miracle.
The family has created a GoFundMe to help with medical expenses.