Halloween turns terrible for Buckner teen

A car plowed into a 15-year-old girl Halloween evening in front of Buckner Elementary school, propelling her through the air and onto pavement.
Around 7:45 p.m., Sarah Diaz got out of her mother’s vehicle near the school. Buckner elementary was holding a trick or treat event that evening.
Diaz, a sophomore at Fort Osage High School, was dressed as a fairy.
Chris Hutchinson, Diaz’s father, gave an account of the horrific events that followed after Diaz got out of the car.
“My daughter got out of the car and crossed the street and this lady came out of nowhere and hit her,” Hutchinson said.
The car slammed into her knee and thigh, propelling her onto the hood and tossing her 15 feet onto the pavement, Hutchinson said.
“She got hit and flew 15 feet,” he said.
An ambulance rushed Diaz to Centerpoint Medical Center. She suffered heavy road rash on her back, and her knee was injured.
“We still got a lot doctors appointments and testing to make sure everything is OK,” he said.
She is suffering massive swelling today, but X-rays showed no broken bones, he said.
The girl’s mother witnessed the incident from her car.
The mother rushed to her fallen daughter, who was conscious, as she called 911 on her cell phone. Diaz was conscious after the impact.
But as she was reporting to dispatchers that her daughter had been hit by a car, the mother passed out, the father said. Another witness picked up the phone and continued to get help for the girl.
The mother had to receive treatment following her collapse on the pavement. She suffered scrapes. But the mother just days prior to the accident had surgery from a bone disease in her leg.
Hutchinson said, from what witnesses told him, the driver was “doing 30 (mph) plus.”
He added: “I think the driver was inattentive to what was going on, wasn’t paying attention to the road. It was a school festival. Everybody knows to crawl through there (with their cars). There was hundreds of people down there.”
The Buckner Police Department has issued no information about the incident nor responded to repeated requests from The Examiner. A person answering the phone at the police department Monday said the mayor would have to approve any information before it was released to the media. Buckner Mayor Larry Neidel, however, was unavailble Monday.