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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Police say a driver hit a six-year-old boy at 44th and Montgall on Tuesday afternoon while trying to get away from officers. The little boy is just a kindergartener who had hopped on his bike to play with the other kids in the neighborhood.

Police call him extremely lucky, as they believe the accident could’ve easily turned deadly. A witness described it happening in a blur.

“It was real hard – you could just hear like a ‘pow!’ You blinked your eye and it was like ‘bam!’ And it was over. It was scary,” said witness Tamika Penrice.

Family provided photo of crash victim Jayce Thompson.
Family provided photo of crash victim Jayce Thompson.

She said she watched in horror from her front porch as neighborhood kid Jayce Thompson rode his bike into the middle of the street, when a driver speeding away from police suddenly hit him with their car.

“The little boy flipped in the air, he bounced down and he hit his head,” Penrice said. “It was scary, real scary. I`ve never seen nobody get hit by a car, so that was real scary.”

Lights and sirens on, police say they were trailing a black Nissan that was speeding through town.

“The car, it was going at least 90 miles per hour,” Penrice said.

The driver raced their car over a hill, drove through a stop sign and side-swiped Jayce, and sped away from the scene.

“Oh, extremely, extremely lucky. He`s very fortunate. This could`ve turned out very, very tragic,” said Kansas City, Mo. Police Captain Derek McCollum.

Witnesses say Jayce walked away from the crash, but went with his mother to Children’s Mercy Hospital to get checked out for injuries. The rest of his family stayed behind, and anxiously waited for an update.

“I`m just praying that he`s okay, that it`s not serious, but of course when you hear that a child has been hit by a car, you kind of think the worst,” said Jayce’s aunt, Cynthia Bland.

The incident serves as a reminder for other parents as summer approaches.

“Hammer that home with their children, stay out of the street,” Cpt. McCollum said.

Penrice, a mother herself, had a message for the driver on the run.

“We have kids here. Just imagine one of your kids was being hit by a car. And what would you do? If that was one of mine, there was nothing that would`ve stopped me from doing anything to this person,” she said.

Police are still looking for that speeding car, which again was a black Nissan that should now have damage to the driver’s side front. If you see it, call Crimestoppers at (816) 474-TIPS. Jayce returned home from Children’s Mercy Tuesday night with swelling to his leg, but it’s not believed to be broken.