The three Hahnville High School students who were hit by a car in August while sitting in a front yard in Luling are all recovering well, according to one of the victims, Treval Dunmiles.
Dunmiles, 17, played his first football game as a starting linebacker since the accident on Oct. 8.
Dunmiles and two of his friends, Joseph Kirch, 15, and Joseph Rafiel, 17, were struck while playing with their cell phones on Rafiel’s front lawn on Luling Estates Drive. Witnesses said the driver of the vehicle that hit them was texting at the time of the accident.
While Dunmiles got away from the accident with 30 stitches in his legs, his friends were not as lucky.
Kirch’s hip was broken by the hit, but he is now back in school and doing well.
Rafiel was unconscious for three days following the accident. He was admitted to University Hospital with a fractured skull, broken and fractured bones along his spine, a neck injury and bruised lungs, according to his mother, Crystal Rafiel.
Rafiel and Kirch suffered the most damage because both teens were trapped under the car.
It took 13 neighborhood kids to lift the vehicle off the two Hahnville students.
While family and friends feared that Rafiel would have brain damage or not be able to walk, Dunmiles said his friend is doing a lot better.
School officials said that Rafiel is still undergoing rehabilitation at the hospital and has limited movement in his legs.
“He’ll probably be able to walk…he might just have a limp,” Dunmiles said about Rafiel.
He said Rafiel also does not have brain damage and is expected to be released from the hospital at the end of October.
Dunmiles said that Rafiel hopes to return to school in February 2011.
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