Photo: Meghan Sidorchuk

"It hurts so bad!"

It was the kind of phone call that parents have nightmares about. 

Last Saturday, Penticton resident Meghan Sidorchuk picked up her cell only to hear her 13-year-old daughter crying and saying she had been hit by a car.

On June 1 at around 1:30 p.m., her daughter Brooklyn had been trying to get back home from Skaha Lake to their family home at Sun Leisure Mobile Home Park via the underpass by the Penticton Channel. She told her mother she saw a person she believed was shooting up drugs and said was "acting all funny," and that there was a tent pitched and she wasn't sure how many people were inside.

Brooklyn felt unsafe, and decided to forego the bypass and try her luck crossing the highway instead. 

RCMP confirm she was struck by a car, and luckily only suffered minor physical injuries. Now, her mother wants to share the story to help raise awareness about the "unintentional victims" of the addiction crisis in Penticton. 

"I waited a week to make sure that my head was clear, and we're presenting the public with the right message," Sidorchuk said. "Yeah, we all know that Brooklyn made a mistake darting across the highway, and she will live with that forever. However, she was presented with a choice that no 13-year-old should make."

Sidorchuk says the drug problem in Penticton is not just affecting business owners and property owners, it's affecting kids like Brooklyn who are faced with situations they don't know how to handle on a daily basis. 

"We as adults are uncomfortable with the drug and criminal activity that's happening, I can't even fathom what the kids are feeling," she said.

Sidorchuk and her mother emailed Penticton city council this week about Brooklyn's accident, asking for council's plans to address the safety concerns in the community that are driving youth like Brooklyn to avoid certain areas of town. She said they got boilerplate responses. 

"'I'm so sorry to hear about this, please know that we are aware and we're working on it.' But what are you doing to work on it?" Sidorchuk said. 

She said her kids have been taught not to run across the street, and she trusts Brooklyn only darted across the highway because she felt truly unsafe in the underpass. Brooklyn has been apologizing about the incident ever since.

"For her to feel the need to apologize to me over and over and say 'I'm so sorry Mom, I thought I could make it,' and to extend her apology to the driver of the vehicle, it just broke my heart," Sidorchuk said.

Brooklyn sustained only minor injuries and will be undergoing counselling to deal with the psychological aftermath of the accident. Sidorchuk said that since sharing their story on social media, she has seen the best side of Penticton. 

"There has been an outrageous, amazing amount of supportive comments," she said. "It's not going unnoticed. We are so appreciative of the community that we live in and we just want to see that this community is safe again for the kids that are being raised in this community."

Castanet received confirmation of the incident from RCMP Traffic Services, but Penticton RCMP have not yet responded to requests for comment. 

Photo: Meghan Sidorchuk

Some of Brooklyn's injuries after her accident.