While waiting for his daughter to make it through an hours-long surgery, Leo Alvarez can’t help but think of the future.
In three months, they should be celebrating Nina’s quinceanera. But instead of party planning, tonight she’s lying unconscious in a hospital bed.
“I mean, for me, the only thing I can do is support her. That’s the only thing I can do,” said Alvarez.
Thursday evening, Alvarez said 14-year-old Nina was on a nightly run-- the Indian Springs Middle School student conditioning to go out for the cross-country team at Keller High School.
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Alvarez's wife was using an app to track her.
"My wife looked at the phone, and she wasn't moving. She said, ‘Something isn't right here’,” he said.
Then, came the call from the police.
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Tread marks still stain the pavement where Keller Police say Nina was hit while jogging through a crosswalk on Bear Creek Parkway.
Police arrested the driver, 67-year-old, Michael Mango, for intoxication assault with a vehicle. They say he was traveling at a high rate of speed and failed to stop until after the crash.
"This is not an accident. When you decide to run a pickup truck drunk at 6 p.m. Thursday, listen that's not an accident,” said Alvarez.
Thursday at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center Grapevine, Nina remains in critical condition. Alvarez said she's undergone surgery for two fractured femurs and a broken knee. Next week, doctors will repair her pelvis. There's also a brain bleed.
"That one right there, we don't know,” he said.
Doctors have told the parents full recovery could take at least a year and a half.
"I'm not asking for money but we need help. A prayer is good for us. It's enough for us,” he said.
Alvarez also hopes his community will rally to look at ways, other than flashing lights and painted stripes, to slow drivers along the heavily traveled pedestrian path.
Because while he's not sure what's next for Nina, he knows it could have been worse.
