ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
Dylan Clark of Saugus sits with the get well card he got from his classmates after being hit and dragged by a car.
By BRIDGET TURCOTTE
SAUGUS — One Saugus family is thankful for what they call a miracle this holiday.
Dylan Clark, 10, has recovered completely after he was struck by a car and dragged 50 feet a month ago.
As Dylan and his brother Dominick Clark, 15, waited for their mother to make a quick stop at Kohl’s, they walked to Walgreens to kill time. A car stopped to let the boys cross Walnut Street, but a 29-year-old Saugus man driving a Nissan Rogue passed the car, striking Dylan in the crosswalk.
The driver turned right into the Walgreens parking lot, dragging Dylan beneath his car.
“Dominick came running into Kohl’s,” said Lyn Clark, the boys’ mother. “He told me Dylan got hit by a car. He’s under the car and he’s not moving.”
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She rushed outside and found her son face-up, pinned under the vehicle.
“He was unconscious and his face didn’t look good,” she said. “He had a broken nose. The back of his body was covered in road rash and burns.”
A witness helped a responding officer lift the vehicle so Dylan could be freed.
He doesn’t remember the accident, he said, but he remembers what happened next.
“I was heading to Walgreens,” Dylan said. “When I woke up, I felt like I had been asleep for a while and had a bad dream.”
His mom said he also suffered a broken finger, a hematoma on the outside of his head, bruises, burns and road rash.
“They were worried he would have a head trauma,” Lyn said. “It wasn’t until he came to about an hour later, after they gave him pain medicine, that I knew he was kind of OK. It’s like a miracle, really.
“Even reading the report — what they initially thought — it said some bad things. We were very lucky.”
Dylan was released from the hospital two days later and was back to school in about two weeks. He was welcomed back to school with a poster signed by each of his classmates.
He’s sitting out wrestling this season but will return to the Tigers, his Saugus American Majors team, at the start of baseball season.
But he and his mom want to help prevent other children from going through the same trauma.
“We’ve talked about people being more aware of pedestrians and pedestrians knowing they can’t be trusting of drivers,” Lyn said. “Even if you’re in a crosswalk, don’t assume the cars are going to stop for you.
“People driving need to pay more attention. I know that driver didn’t do it on purpose, but it could have been prevented.”
Weather conditions and darkness were believed to have played a factor in the crash and the driver was not charged.
Saugus Police Lt. Ronald Giorgetti said he couldn’t speak to the danger of the specific scene, but agreed that drivers should be extra cautious with the influx of traffic during the holiday season.
“I would ask people to be patient with the increase in traffic and increase in pedestrian traffic,” Giorgetti said. “We have some large retailers. I would remind people to refrain from texting and talking on the phone while driving so they are not distracted.”
Bridget Turcotte can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @BridgetTurcotte