By Chris Agee | cagee@mineralwellsindex.com
Donald MacPhail wants to clear up what he considers misplaced blame in the hit-and-run impact that seriously injured his great-granddaughter Thursday morning.
Two-year-old Alyssia Doyle was struck by a small gray or silver car about 11:30 a.m. and the driver of the vehicle failed to stop.
MacPhail said Friday many people in the community have jumped to the conclusion his granddaughter, Alyssia’s mother, bears some of the responsibility by allowing the toddler in the street.
“I retired from truck driving to be the nanny for the great-grandbabies,” MacPhail said, adding Alyssia’s entire family is invested in her care and safety.
He was doing laundry Thursday morning just before the impact and said he periodically checked on Alyssia and her mother, Jessica Doyle, who were together in the front yard.
“Alyssia loves to pick flowers for her mother and all of us,” MacPhail recalled. That day, he added, “she was picking those little white flowers by the mailbox and bringing them over to her mother.”
When the girl got too close to the edge of the yard, though, he said her mother was quick to react.
MacPhail explained Alyssia “picked [a flower] and either she dropped it or the wind blew it and soon as she turned to go, I heard Jessica scream, ‘Alyssia Katherine, stop!’”
At that moment, he said “I looked up and that’s when she took one step into the street and the car hit her.”
The vehicle that struck Alyssia was traveling in excess of a safe speed for the residential street, MacPhail said.
“I told [authorities] 40 miles per hour, I mean it was moving way too fast,” he said.
“She wasn’t in the street,” he added, “she took one step. That tells you how close the car was to the curb going that fast.”
Police agreed the vehicle was likely traveling close to the curb given the fact another car was parked on the opposite side of the street, leaving little room on the narrow street to drive.
MacPhail and a neighbor, Linda Stevens, who heard the commotion and rushed to the scene, worked to revive the girl, who both said was not breathing when they arrived at her side.
Stevens recalled, “we were having lunch, which is a good view to their home, and I heard this blood-curdling scream; only a mother knows that scream.”
She said she immediately saw Alyssia’s mother carrying the girl and laid her down on the grass.
After a short period of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Stevens said another resident of the street with a background in health care arrived.
“She said, ‘I’m getting a pulse, I’m getting a pulse,’ and I said, ‘Well, I’m getting a gurgling.’ Immediately, the EMT showed up and they took over.”
The girl was then airlifted to Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth where Public Relations Director Winifred King said Friday she remained in critical condition.
Despite remaining in critical condition, MacPhail said her injuries could have been much worse.
“[Thursday] night, they did a CT scan on her,” he said. “She had a bruised left kidney, bruised left lung, no broken bones except for her skull.”
He said the cranial injury was of most concern to doctors who informed the family there might be lasting brain damage “because she got hit by the car and then the pavement.”
MacPhail said that, while he wishes he could provide a more detailed description of either the car that hit Alyssia or its driver, the commotion at the scene took priority.
“The car was moving too fast for me to get a look at the license plate,” he said, though he did notice “the only time the stop lights came on was when it slowed down to make a right-hand turn” onto FM Road 1821.
Even the direction the vehicle turned, though, is not completely clear in his memory because his focus was on his great-granddaughter.
“I can’t see the plate, there’s nothing I can do, I’m going to tend to my granddaughter and great-granddaughter,” he said. The driver “could have made a U-turn and come back down the street and I wouldn’t have known.”
Both Stevens and MacPhail expressed their outrage that some in the community were so quick to blame Alyssia’s mother for the incident.
“People are saying very bad things about that mother,” Stevens said. “It is not true. I have a direct view of her home and that mother is never more than 3 feet behind that child.”
The individual that deserves blame is the driver responsible, she added.
“I just cannot imagine anyone - man, woman, child - not stopping and rendering aid for a child that young,” she said.
If the driver had stopped after the collision, a police spokesperson said Friday, there would have likely been no charges filed.
Instead, the driver now faces a probable felony charge of failure to stop and render aid, authorities said.
As of Friday afternoon, MWPD officers have followed multiple leads as to the whereabouts of either the driver or vehicle that struck the girl, though none were successful.
Police spent much of Thursday canvassing the surrounding areas, looking for a silver or gray vehicle with damage to the right front side and have issued a Crime Stoppers alert for any information leading to the arrest and indictment of the driver.
Authorities are asking anyone with such information to contact Crime Stoppers at (940) 325-0000 or the MWPD at 328-7770.
Information can be given anonymously and persons with information leading to and arrest and indictment are eligible for a reward up to $1,000.
A benefit account for Alyssia has been set up at First Financial Bank in Mineral Wells. Her parents are Caleb and Jessica Doyle.
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