VERO LAKE ESTATES, Fla. — We are reviewing the case of a 15-year-old girl who was struck and killed while waiting for the school bus.

We initially reported about the incident when it happened on April 12th.

It’s been six months since Haylee Hughes was declared brain dead from the accident and still no one has been charged.

WPTV investigative reporter Kate Hussey spent the last two months digging through the records to find out why.

Haylee’s mother, Jericho Hughes, told Hussey that she felt she had been robbed of justice.

“It was just the beginning. She… was my first born. I was 18 when I had her. We pretty much grew up together,” Jericho Hughes said through tears. “I was so excited to see all the things he was going to do.”

On April 12, the Florida Highway Patrol said 15-year-old Haylee Hughes was walking to her bus stop at the corner of 79th and 102nd Avenues when a truck veered into the Sebastian River High Schooler, hitting and throwing her the body on a shoulder of grass. .

The teenager was airlifted to St Mary’s Medical Centre, but doctors determined her brain had been deprived of oxygen for too long and declared her brain dead.

After ten days, Jericho Hughes made the heartbreaking decision to take his daughter off life support.

“That was the … um … the … was the hardest thing to witness my daughter stop breathing,” Hughes said. “From that moment, I knew he wasn’t coming home.”

WPTV

FHP said the person who hit Haylee was one of her classmates. A 17-year-old on his way to school.

We are not identifying him because he is a minor.

According to the FHP’s traffic homicide investigation report, the teenager not only hit Haylee, but left the scene.

Chronology

The only 911 call related to the crash came from the teenage driver’s father.

“911, what’s your 911 address?” asked the dispatcher on the call.

“I was just driving by, there’s a young lady by a construction site, she was… I think she was hit by a car,” the father told the dispatcher. “She doesn’t talk, yet she breathes, thank God.”

FHP said the teenager’s cell phone records indicate he hit Haylee sometime before 6:23 a.m.

It is said to have stopped right after the accident.

Investigators said the teenager told them he thought he hit a mailbox.

He then reportedly called his father and told investigators his father told him to go back home to see the damage.

WPTV

Cell phone records indicate at 6:31 a.m. the teenager left for school again.

According to the FHP investigative report, at 6:37 a.m., the driver’s father was on the scene calling 911.

“I’ve got the ambulance on the way and I’ve got law enforcement on the way,” the dispatcher said.

“Breathe, a little hard. Please. Hurry,” the father replied.

“Don’t you see any vehicles around or any…?” asked the dispatcher.

“No, well, I… I… I… I know what happened, I know what happened, I just got a call from my son, he was on his way to school, um, on 79th Street, he’s like, ‘Dad, I think I hit a mailbox, I don’t understand, I wasn’t even in the middle of the road,'” the parent said.

“Okay, so your son probably hit a vehicle—or hit a person?” asked the dispatcher.

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying!” said the father.

“Okay, okay, that’s… that’s… well, you said you weren’t 100 percent sure, so I wanted to make sure,” the dispatcher replied.

“No, no, no, I’m…I’m…I’m 100% sure,” said the father.

It is now 6:40, at least 17 minutes after Haylee was presumably hit.

“Where is your son?” asked the dispatcher.

“I — I — he came to my house and then he showed me where, like he told me about where the mailbox was, and I said, ‘Okay…’ and then he said, ‘It’s a plastic one on the side of the road, a white one,'” said the parent.

At the time of the accident, Haylee’s mother said her daughter was wearing dark clothing. Jeans, converse and a dark top.

In their report, the FHP said it was dark with little or no light at the time of the crash.

“I see – uh – cars coming now,” the father told the dispatcher.

“Okay, see the lights and sirens coming?” asked the dispatcher.

“Yeah, and like I said, I’m looking at the tracks on the road, stuff like that,” said the father.

“Uh-huh,” the dispatcher replies.

“None of that got around, that’s all…” the father continues in the 911 call. At this point, sirens can be heard arriving on the scene.

FHP

Records from the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office show a trauma helicopter landed at the scene at 7:12 a.m., nearly an hour after FHP believes Haylee was hit.

Medical records show that at this point paramedics put Haylee on oxygen.

However, it takes almost another hour to get her to the hospital and seen by a trauma team. Haylee’s medical records show she arrived at 8:08 am

“The damage was too much (gone),” Hughes said.

According to the summary of Haylee’s hospital records, she had no broken bones and no damage to any vital organs, except for her brain, which was bleeding.

A CT scan shows the bleeding turned into what’s called an “anoxic brain injury,” meaning her brain wasn’t getting oxygen.

WPTV

We wanted to know if the time it took to get Haylee to the hospital played a factor in her death, so we sent her records to another neurologist to review.

Brent Masel is the national medical director for the Brain Injury Association of America.

“Could getting her treatment sooner have made a difference in her chances of survival?” Hussey asked Masel.

“Yes, the delay no doubt made things a lot worse,” Masel said. “Time is brain.”

The FHP said the teenage driver told investigators he was looking for something in his bag when the crash occurred, and investigators, in their crash report, concluded the teen “operated the motor vehicle in a negligent or careless manner” and ” fled from the scene”.

However, the State Attorney’s Office responded to the report that prosecutors do not intend to file criminal charges because “the facts of the case do not demonstrate that the defendant was aware of the victim’s injuries when the defendant left the scene of the accident.”

The letter added that if more evidence is uncovered, prosecutors will take another look at the case.

For Hughes, however, it all seems so unfair. She waited too many months for justice and Haylee waited too many minutes for help.

A Daughter’s Story: Abridged. Of her grieving mother: not yet written.

“How can you be sad with an open ending?” Hughes asked through tears. “In my mind he’s still in the intensive care unit. When I wake up in the morning, I wake up in a panic, thinking I have to get back to the hospital quickly and then I have to remember.”

Hughes has now set up a small memorial for Haylee, a glimpse into the young girl’s life: filled with flowers, toys and trinkets.

I called the State’s Attorney’s office to ask why the case didn’t merit reckless driving or hit and run charges.

Prosecutor Bill Long told Hussey he could not comment on the case, but said in general his team is cautious about prosecuting lesser charges because double jeopardy could be an obstacle to pursuing more serious charges on future.

I also called the teenager’s family. His father and the family’s attorney told us they had no comment.