A day after a mother pushing a baby in a stroller was seriously hurt in a crash in Arlington, Virginia, the driver has been charged.
John Washington of Silver Spring, Maryland, was charged with reckless driving and failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, Arlington police said Friday morning.
The woman had to have a leg amputated after she was hit by the truck Thursday morning, News4 has learned.
Before impact, she managed to push her baby girl's stroller out of harm's way.
The crash occurred at Fort Myer Drive and Lee Highway, just south of the Key Bridge. Officers were dispatched to the scene about 9:25 a.m. Thursday.
Witnesses told News4 that women in the area scooped the baby out of the stroller as medics examined the woman.
"Miraculously, the baby seemed to be fine," Niamh Bennett said. She and a coworker heard a commotion and rushed to help.
"My colleague and myself, we decided to do whatever we could. We ran and got towels from our gym. Our first thought was, try to stop the bleeding," Bennett said.
Bennett said she was impressed by how many people hurried to help.
"It just shows there really is good in people," she said.
A red-and-black stroller remained on the scene later Thursday, with a woman's purse hooked onto the handle. A pair of boots lay in the street.
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The woman was taken to a hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
The truck driver, a 63-year-old man, remained on the scene.
A 5-month-old baby was killed in Lansdowne, Virginia, in August 2016 after a driver hit his mother and his stroller as they used a crosswalk. The driver who killed Tristan Schulz was sentenced to a year in jail.
Two years earlier, a 39-year-old woman was hit by a dump truck and killed in Arlington as she reached into her parked minivan for one of her children. The driver who hit Jennifer Lawson near Nottingham Elementary School was fined $100 and ordered to spend six days in jail.
