Vancouver 13-year-old involved in hit-and-run on birthday

VANCOUVER Wash. (KPTV) - A mother in Vancouver is outraged after her daughter was the victim of a hit-and-run in a parking lot in that landed her in the hospital.

Just before 1 p.m. March 25, Cierra Schaner and her father headed to the Fred Meyer, just 10 minutes away from their home on SE Mill Plain. They were buying ice cream for a sleepover to celebrate Cierra’s 13th birthday. As they were loading groceries into their car, Cierra went to return the shopping cart, and that’s when a car parked next to them, backed out and hit her.

”I’m getting a phone call screaming at me that our daughter was hit by a car. I’m panicking, like I started shaking, adrenaline hit me so bad,” says Tiffany Schaner, Cierra’s mother. “The car that was parked next to my husband hit the gas and peeled out of the spot. My husband said he started screaming, ‘Stop, stop, stop!’ My daughter had froze and she snapped out of it and she started to run, and wound up being hit.”

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Vancouver police say the vehicle is a tan Subaru Outback. Cierra was taken to the hospital with a broken ankle. Tiffany says if she hadn’t reacted, she may not be with her family today.

“That’s one thing she expressed at the hospital, was that this will always be what her 13th birthday was,” says Schaner.

Cierra is still trying to grasp what happened. Her mother says she’s withdrawn and distanced herself from friends. She hopes her family can move forward in a positive way.

”We always try to look at the brighter side of things and I hope that maybe years from now we can also look back and be like, ‘Do you remember when… ‘ and not have it be such a traumatic thing,” says Schaner.

It’s still a possibility Cierra may need surgery. No arrests have been made and the case remains under investigation.

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