Family wants answers after 13-year-old injured in hit-and-run

Girl was struck by SUV while riding skateboard

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Police are searching for the hit-and-run driver who left a teenage girl unconscious on the side of the road Sunday night. 

Family members said 13-year-old Brianna Neal was hit by an SUV about 8 p.m. near the intersection of Old St. Augustine and Julington Creek roads. 

Neal’s mother Donna Griffin said her daughter was on a skateboard on the side of the road and was knocked several feet by the collision.

“The car didn’t even stop,” Griffin said. “There’s no way that they didn’t know that they hit her because they hit their brakes. They tapped their brakes.”

Griffin said she was outside her parents’ house when she heard her daughter get hit and found her on the ground. Griffin, her three kids and her brother were loading up the car in her parents’ driveway.

“As soon as I heard the sound, I looked, kind of glanced up, and I saw my daughter. I saw a shirt fly. That’s all I saw,” Griffin said.

Griffin told News4Jax that she keeps reliving the moment she thought her daughter had been killed. 

“I want to know why,” Griffin said. “Accidents happen. I totally understand that. I just, I want to know why?” 

Neal’s 14th birthday is Tuesday. Griffin said she and her family are happy she was released from the hospital Monday evening.

“I’m thankful she’s going to be here for her birthday,” Griffin said.

Neal suffered a minor concussion, along with bumps and bruises, and memory loss but, incredibly, has no broken bones or internal bleeding.

Griffin said the SUV that hit her daughter is a late-model, small-to-mid-sized and silver or gray. It likely has damage to the front passenger side.