Spanaway mom outraged that driver who hit her 12-year-old just asked if he was OK and then left

SPANAWAY -- Police are seeking the driver of a car that hit a 12-year-old on his bicycle and then drove off when the boy said he was OK.

"It came out of nowhere, I don't even know where it was," Westley Hackler said Thursday of the vehicle that hit him.

"I flew off the bike and I hit head-first on the ground and then I just laid there, like, whoa," he said.

He was hit by a car while crossing at the corner of 21st and 172nd in his Spanaway neighborhood.

"He gets out of the car and he's like, 'Are you OK?'  I said, yeah. I'm still in shock, I don't really know if I'm OK, I just said that."

 

But Westley's mom, Aja Hackler, said her son was not OK. And she's shocked that the driver left the scene.

Westley's mom says took him to an urgent care clinic, where she found out he'd suffered a bruised tailbone and a sprained ankle.

"To leave an injured child with his broken bike to make his way home by himself, that's amazing," she said.

When she called 911 to file a report, she said she was surprised by their response.

"There was no crime that they said had taken place because the man had stopped and I was like, you're telling me that he can just hit a kid on a bike and stop and say, hey, are you OK and that's all he has to do? And he's like, 'Well, that's what the law says,'" she said.

Mike Blair, of the Pierce County Sheriff's Office, said the communication center operator got it wrong.

In fact, the case will now be handled as a hit-and-run investigation.

Westley said he remembers it was as two-door red car. Anyone with information is asked to contact police.