{"id":251825,"date":"2026-04-30T00:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T00:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/251825\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T00:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T00:34:09","slug":"11-year-old-boy-recounts-being-hit-by-a-speeding-car-while-walking-to-school-in-miami-gardens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/251825\/","title":{"rendered":"11-year-old boy recounts being hit by a speeding car while walking to school in Miami Gardens"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 11-year-old child and his family are speaking out after he was hit by a speeding car in Miami Gardens<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnny Baptiste Jr.’s loved ones say the child could have lost his life when he was struck while walking to school <\/a>with his cousin.<\/p>\n

Baptiste recounts his experience with very vivid memories of what happened. <\/p>\n

“We were walking on the side of the road, and the car came speeding by, and then it swerved into me, and I got hit,” he said. “My cousin tried to talk to me, but it was too late”.<\/p>\n

The 11-year-old has a white bandage around his head after being struck by a car. He was left with a fractured skull and fractured pelvis, as well as bruises all over his body.<\/p>\n

When asked about the incident, Baptiste said, “What did you think about this? I was nervous about what was going to happen.” He added, “What else do you remember? I couldn’t see”.<\/p>\n

Baptiste was walking to school just before 8 a.m. Tuesday, when police say a driver, trying to get around school traffic, went up on a swale, lost control, and hit a tree and the boy. Baptiste was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital.<\/p>\n

Baptiste and his family hope drivers will be safe and pay attention to the road\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked what he would say to other drivers, Baptiste replied, “Pay attention to the road”.<\/p>\n

Baptiste’s mother, Shakera Rolle, stayed with him during his entire hospital stay.<\/p>\n

“I am very grateful. I thank God every second that he is here with me,” Rolle said. “I could have lost my son. I almost lost my son”.<\/p>\n

The boy’s grandmother, Stephanie Joseph, pleaded with drivers to be more careful.<\/p>\n

“I just pray to God that people will be more careful, especially where there are kids, and be more vigilant, particularly in a school zone,” Joseph said. “Don’t be on the phone. Don’t be distracted, especially in a school zone”.<\/p>\n

Baptiste is a fifth grader at Parkway Elementary School. He plans to return to school soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’m going to go back to school next week, and right now, I’m getting a little rest,” he said.<\/p>\n

When told that a lot of people were cheering him on, Baptiste replied, “I thank people for rooting for me, and I thank you for their support”.<\/p>\n

The family has created an online fundraising page to help with medical expenses. “And times like this, we need help to pay all these bills,” Joseph said.<\/p>\n

Police say the driver who struck Baptiste Jr. has been charged with reckless driving and reckless driving causing serious bodily injury.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 11-year-old child and his family are speaking out after he was hit by a speeding car in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2336,123,2431,23276,125,124,1064,807],"class_list":["post-251825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-car-crash","tag-miami","tag-miami-gardens","tag-miami-gardens-police","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-miami-dade","tag-south-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}