Three Hahnville High School students were hospitalized after being run over by a driver who witnesses say was texting at the time of the accident. Two of them are recovering while a third is in critical condition.
Treval Dunmiles, 17, Joseph Kirch, 15, and Joseph Rafiel, 17, were struck while playing with their cell phones on Rafiel’s front lawn on Luling Estates Drive in Luling.
Witnesses said that the driver, Stephanie L. Clay, 42, of 1173 N. Luling Estates Drive, was texting on her cell phone when the car hopped a curb and hit the students. Clay was charged with texting while operating a motor vehicle, reckless operation and three counts of negligent injuring.
She was released from the Nelson Coleman Correctional Center after posting a $15,000 bond.
“We had our backs to the road and I looked back and then ‘boom’ and I got hit,” Dunmiles said. “When I woke up, I was laying on the curb in blood and water.”
Dunmiles said that when he regained consciousness after the hit, he saw his two friends underneath the red Kia Spectra.
“I tried to get up and help them, but I couldn’t,” Dunmiles said. “There was a big cut on my leg and the meat and skin were pushed up toward my knee and you could see the bone and muscle.”
Kirch and Rafiel were trapped under the car until a group of about 13 neighborhood kids lifted the vehicle off of them.
Dunmiles, a starting linebacker for the Hahnville football team this year, said that he should be able to rejoin the squad in three to five weeks.
He received more than 30 stitches for his leg injury but had no broken bones, and stayed at Ochsner Hospital for less than a week.
His friends were less fortunate.
Kirch’s hip was broken by the hit and he is still recovering at Ochsner.
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.
“He’s looking at a long, long, long time in the hospital,” Crystal said.
But Crystal says her son is doing much better than he was in the hours following the crash.
Now that Rafiel is conscious, his mother said the doctors’ main concern is paralysis.
“We’re really concerned about the left side because of the spinal injury,” Crystal said.
She said that Rafiel is able to talk, but that he doesn’t remember much.
“He doesn’t remember what happened. He said it feels like it was a dream,” Crystal said.
The accident comes less than a month after Louisiana legislators passed new roadway laws that ban all texting while driving. But Sheriff Greg Champagne says these new laws are vague and will be difficult to enforce efficiently.
“The legislators have made it as complicated as possible,” Champagne said.
Under the new law, no driver is allowed to text message while driving.
The law also says that drivers with a learner’s permit, or those who are 17 years old or younger, can’t operate a cell phone with their hands. That includes dialing a number, texting or using the device at all. The only way they can use a cell phone is with a hands-free device, such as a Bluetooth, that allows dialing by voice command.
“Hands free means hands free,” Champagne said. “They are not allowed to put their hands on the device while driving. Even grabbing the phone and pushing buttons is texting.”
Previously, texting was illegal but it was not grounds for an officer to pull over a driver. But if the driver was pulled over for another offense, they could also be ticketed for texting while driving.
Now texting will be a justification for a traffic stop.
Champagne said that it could be difficult for patrolling officers to differentiate between drivers who are texting and those who are doing other activities, such as opening a candy bar. Officers will have to use their best judgment when they think they see someone violating the law.
It will also be difficult for officers to determine the age of a driver who is talking on a cell phone without pulling them over to investigate.
“Typical Louisiana law – now they want the police officers to split hairs and decide what is what,” Champagne said. “(The law) is not that clear, but we’ll just do the best we can with enforcing it.”
Champagne said that the law potentially allows police to stop anyone who appears to be looking down or doing anything with their hands, but that his officers will do their best to only pull over those who are violating the new law.
“The important thing is that (a driver’s) attention needs to be on the road. Many more people are injured by traffic accidents than by any other kind of violent crime,” Champagne said. “The purpose of this is for people to just hang up and drive. It’s not the point to make police aggravate people by pulling them over.”
The only exception to the new laws about cell phone use is in the case of an emergency, Champagne said.
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