Manitoba

Girl, 8, recovering in neck brace after hit and run

A Winnipeg mother is fuming after her eight-year-old daughter was badly injured in a hit and run Saturday night.

'I'm furious,' Westdale mom says after daughter hit while trying to cross back lane

Danika Burridge, 8, is recovering with a neck brace after being hit while riding her bike Saturday night. (Jessica Burridge)

A Winnipeg mother is fuming after her eight-year-old daughter was badly injured in a hit and run Saturday night.

Danika Burridge, 8, would normally be outside riding her bike with friends, but Sunday afternoon she was stuck inside with several bruises and wearing a neck brace.

"I'm furious," said Danika's mom, Jessica Burridge.

Burridge said Danika was riding her bike on Westgrove Way around 5:30 p.m. Saturday when she was hit by the back of a gold truck while trying to cross a back lane.
The handlebars on Danika's bike were damaged in the hit and run. (Jessica Burridge)

"She's like 'I tried to stop and they just hit me,'" Burridge said.

She said she rushed her daughter to hospital and spent the night with her in an emergency room.

'Pretty banged up'

"Her legs are pretty banged up," Burridge said.

"They said I shouldn't even [have] moved her spine. I should have called the ambulance right away."

Several other hit and runs have occurred in recent weeks. Paramedics took a man to hospital in critical condition after a driver hit him on Jefferson Avenue Sunday morning.

A man was also hit by a car on Friday at the intersection of Regent Avenue West and Peguis Street.

Last Sunday a 30-year-old man died after in a hit and run on Cumberland Avenue and Carlton Street. Police are still searching for the driver.

Winnipeg police Const. Jay Murray said the hit and runs are concerning.

"It's a very serious offence," Murray said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

​Austin Grabish is a reporter for CBC News in Winnipeg. Since joining CBC in 2016, he's covered several major stories. Some of his career highlights have been documenting the plight of asylum seekers leaving America in the dead of winter for Canada and the 2019 manhunt for two teenage murder suspects. In 2021, he won an RTDNA Canada award for his investigative reporting on the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which triggered change. Have a story idea? Email: austin.grabish@cbc.ca