A 16-year-old boy has died after being hit by an SUV while riding an electric scooter late last month in Alexandria, Virginia.
Miguel Ángel Rivera was hit at Sanger Avenue and North Beauregard Street, on Saturday, Aug. 27, Alexandria police said. He suffered life-threatening injuries and died on Monday.
Officers responded at about 10:20 p.m., and took the teen to a hospital. According to the initial investigation, he was headed south on North Beauregard Street and trying to turn left onto Sanger Avenue when he was hit by a northbound Toyota RAV-4.
"[It was] so hard, seeing him in that hospital bed with so many medications, waiting for a miracle from God," his mother, Yecelia Alvarado, told our sister station Telemundo 44 in Spanish. "The surgery they did, they took off part of his skull to give his brain room because it was so swollen."
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Miguel was in the ICU for a week before Alvarado received the news no mother wants to hear.
"A 2:20 in the morning I got the news, the difficult news, that my son was passing away. They said he'd had a heart attack and that they were resuscitating him," she said. "I ran... got dressed and left for the hospital, but my son didn't wait for me."
Miguel's family says he had left work and taken a scooter to get to his dad's house, where he spent the weekends. He had nearly arrived when he was struck.
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The teen was the third of five siblings in a now devastated Salvadoran family. He was going to start the 11th grade at Wakefield High School in Arlington and wanted to be a mechanical engineer.
"There's no words. We lost an angel," Seila Santiago said. She said Miguel was her little sister's boyfriend, but he became a member of the family.
Overtime she got to know him as a smart, caring and hard-working student with a bright future ahead of him.
"We just can't fathom losing him, like how? He was young, he had so much to live for. So many people cared for him. So many people are now heartbroken," Santiago said. "You look at the map, he was two minutes away from his home. Two minutes. Two minutes down the street from where he was supposed to go."
Virginia law allows people 14 years old and up to ride electric scooters in the street or sidewalk, as long as they're on the right, avoiding highways and obeying a 20 mph speed limit.
Alvarado, however, is now urging other parents to keep their children off of the scooters.
"I tell these parents to not allow their children to keep using them because many accidents are happening," she said.
The driver remained on the scene after the collision. No information was released on whether they may face charges.
"At this moment I feel a pain I won't be able to overcome," Alvarado said. "My son had many plans for his life: go to college, be someone in this life. Unfortunately, at 16 years old, they cut his wings."
UPDATE (Sept. 6, 2022, 5:10 p.m.): This story was updated from a previous version to clarify that the teen was struck on August 27.
