WASHINGTON — A driver in a car has hit yet another child on a D.C. street.
Around 3 pm Friday, nine-year-old Peter Dziekan was riding his bike near the corner of 21st and Gales Streets NE, in D.C.’s Kingman Park neighborhood when a driver sideswiped him.
The driver immediately sped off.
The Metropolitan Police Department said it is investigating the incident. Dziekan was released from a local hospital later that night.
“It just happened so fast,” Dziekan said. “I couldn’t process emotions.”
Dziekan added the driver made no attempt to stop at the intersection before hitting him.
“I’d like for them to have their license revoked,” he said.
Dziekan was injured less than an hour after another driver hit another 9-year-old boy in Southeast D.C. off Wheeler Road. That child, identified as Kaidyn Green, is still on life support, but showing some responsiveness, an attorney representing the child told us Wednesday.
The attorney said Kaidyn's condition is “very serious”. He is supposed to have major surgery Friday. The surgery will determine whether he has the use of his limbs going forward.
“It’s a miracle he’s alive at this point," said Keith Watters, the attorney representing Kaidyn.
In his case, the driver stayed on the scene and is cooperating, police said.
“It hurt a lot and if that happens to other kids, I don’t want that to happen,” Dziekan said.
Dziekan’s mother, Ami, said he was on his way home from Two Rivers Public Charter School when the crash occurred. She said the incident was one of the last things she wanted to experience as a parent.
“I mean, when your son’s in front of you on a bike, and you hear it crash, the first thing [you feel] is terror,” she said. “You’re like ‘is he okay.'”
Ami Dziekan said changes need to be made to the intersection where the incident occurred.
“If there’s a dangerous intersection that close to a school, it would be great to see someone patrolling it,” she said.
Kingman Park residents have called for changes at the intersection for years too. Nearby resident Nick Mararac has recorded numerous close calls at the intersection from his home security camera. He also recorded the Dziekan crash.
Kingman Park Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Tamara Blair said DDOT is aware of problems at the intersection. However, she says more needs to be done to fix it.
“We had a traffic safety assessment done in 2019 and DDOT has yet to fulfill their own recommendations,” she said.
Blair said DDOT is scheduled to meet with Kingman Park residents on Monday. She said the entire incident involving Dziekan brought back painful memories of when she was hit by a car while jogging along 16th Street NW in the 1990s.
“It needs to be fixed,” she said. “It’s an ongoing problem and it’s not something that just started 10 years ago. This is thirty years ago when I was hit by a car.”
Blair added she would like to see D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser come to her community to see the problems there up close.
“She needs to walk our streets,” she said. “She has walked the streets of Rosedale. She has walked the streets of Carver Langston, across Benning. I have yet to see her walk the streets of Kingman Park so she can know what we deal with on a regular basis.”
WUSA9 has reached out to DDOT for more information on what it plans to do to address safety concerns at the intersection of 21st and Gales Streets NE.