BILLINGS — A Billings mother and her 12-year-old son are speaking out after a pickup truck struck the boy in a crosswalk on his walk home from school, calling on drivers to pay closer attention near pedestrian crossings.
David Slade Oneill was crossing at the intersection of Lewis Avenue and 24th Street West when he was hit Thursday afternoon. He survived, but the close call has sparked renewed concern about driver safety in the area.
Watch David and his mom talk about the scary experience:
O'Neill said the signal was in his favor when the crash happened.
"We had the walking signal on the crosswalk," O'Neill said Sunday.
The impact caught him completely off guard.
"I didn't think it would happen to me," O'Neill said.
Despite the severity of the moment, he said the fear hit harder than the physical pain.
"You know, it'd be like a normal day me not getting hit. But when that truck hit me, it scared me more than it actually hurt," O'Neill said.
His mother, Chelsea Ridout, learned what happened through a frantic phone call from her son's friend.
"It was his friend Ashton freaking out crying and he's like, 'We were hit,'" Ridout said.
Ridout said one detail may have prevented a far worse outcome — her son was wearing his backpack at the time of the crash.
"If it wasn't for his backpack with the way that he was hit sliding up underneath his head, he would have had a really bad concussion," Ridout said.
For Ridout, the crash was frightening, but not entirely surprising.
"This has been a consistent issue for all these kids around here," Ridout said.
She said law enforcement has acknowledged the problem.
"The police officers say that this is a consistent issue and they don't have enough manpower to do anything about it," Ridout said.
Ridout said she is speaking out in hopes of preventing another family from receiving the same call she did.
"What we're trying to figure out is a way to protect these kids to where none of the other parents get a phone call that I had or that our neighbors had, especially with we know that younger kids walk that direction too," Ridout said.
Her message to drivers is direct.
"If you see them, you should immediately just hitch a break. It's not that hard to just let them get across without taking a chance of killing somebody," Ridout said.
O'Neill echoed his mother's plea.
"I think for the drivers, they need to start paying attention more. And if they see somebody crossing, they need to immediately stop," O'Neill said.
He said the danger at that intersection is not an isolated incident.
"I don't think it's fair for children to get hit almost every day," O'Neill said.
For O'Neill, Thursday's crash is something he will not soon forget.
"I was scared. I didn't think that I was going to make it. I thought that that was my last day, but luckily it wasn't," O'Neill said.
