A nine-year-old girl is recovering after she was struck by a car at Lake Waccamaw Sunday.
Lake Police Chief Corey Finch said the collision happened around 5:30 p.m. in the 1500 block of Canal Cove Road.
The girl apparently stepped from behind a bush into the path of an oncoming 2014 BMW driven by Pamela Ann Ashenfelter.
Ashenfelter told investigators she never saw the girl, but knew she had hit something. She immediately stopped and returned to the area. Finch said.
“A witness stated that the vehicle was travelling at the speed limit or possibly under the speed limit and they did not believe that the driver could have seen the juvenile stepping into the roadway from behind the large bush,” Finch said.
The child’s parents were in the yard unloading their boat while the girl and her sister walked over to the canal side of the road. They told police that they heard “a loud noise” and saw their daughter laying in the grass, and saw a red vehicle slowing down then returning to their house.
The parents immediately placed the girl in their car and drove to the boat ramp at 2706 Canal Cove, where they made contact with Wildlife Officer T.C. Stacy.
“He was going to drive the mother and daughter to the Emergency Department when he was advised the rescue unit was almost to his location,” Finch said.
The girl was transported to Columbus Regional with non-life threatening injuries to her leg and foot, Finch said. Her condition was not immediately available.
