A Latonia couple is struggling to visit their hospitalized newborn after a hit-and-run driver destroyed their only vehicle Wednesday afternoon, leaving them without transportation during an already challenging time.
Surveillance video captured the moment a driver took a curve too fast on West 36th Street shortly before 2 p.m., lost control in the snow and slammed into a parked SUV before driving away seconds later.
The damaged vehicle belongs to Ciarra Catron and Austin Dennis, who moved to the neighborhood just two months ago. Their 2-week-old daughter, who was born 6 weeks premature, is currently in the NICU at Good Samaritan Hospital, about 20 minutes from their home.
“We were like, ‘What are the odds that we’re the only car on the street that he hit?'” Catron said.
The couple discovered the crash about an hour after it happened when neighbors knocked on their door to offer Ring doorbell footage and inform them of the incident.
The SUV sustained extensive damage and is now undrivable.
“It’s looking like our axle’s pretty messed up. The things under the hood are messed up,” Catron said. “We’re not sure if they’ll total it out or what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna find out more about it. Either way, it’s unfortunate because it’s money out of pocket.”
The timing couldn’t be worse for the new parents. Dennis is on paternity leave while Catron stays home, and the couple makes at least three trips daily to see their daughter.
The baby must finish taking bottles independently before she can come home, currently managing about half her feedings. Catron exclusively breastfeeds, making regular trips essential for their daughter’s care.
“Financially, it’s pretty hard because he’s obviously on paternity leave right now, but the baby’s not home, so you know, he’s missing out on time with her,” Catron said. “The means to get back and forth was pretty important, and just trying to make time to go see her and be home and things like that’s been pretty difficult.”
While friends and family have offered to help with transportation when possible, working around other people’s schedules will be challenging, the couple said.
“Now it’s getting harder because of things out of our control. It’s not even things that we did ourselves. It’s not terrible spending. It’s not terrible decision-making. It’s just existing and having things like this happen,” Dennis said.
While the couple is grateful for any logistical help they get, they’re frustrated with the driver’s decision to flee the scene rather than take responsibility. The surveillance video seemingly shows the driver pausing briefly after the impact before continuing to drive away.
“You can kind of see in the video that he kind of stops for a second and then just continues to go on,” Dennis said. “And it’s kind of just like you had a moment to you knew you hit something, you knew you hit somebody’s car, and you just kept going.”
Dennis said their insurance will not cover a rental car, and they are facing a hefty deductible for repairs or replacement while already dealing with reduced income during Dennis’s paternity leave.
A friend of the couple created a GoFundMe to help them with medical and transportation expenses in the meantime.
The couple remains hopeful someone can identify the hit-and-run driver while they navigate this challenging period with their newborn in the hospital.
“The past couple of weeks, since our daughter was born, we’ve kind of went with the motto, you never really know what people are going through,” Catron said. “You know, if you’re stuck behind a slow driver, we remind ourselves, you never know what people’re going through. So just, you know, have some integrity and be honest. He could have just came to the door and been honest. Probably was the worst car on the block to hit right now, and if he was just honest, we could have figured something out.”
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