Boy injured along road in Sebastian in critical condition

SEBASTIAN — A 14-year-old boy is hospitalized in a medically induced coma and on a breathing machine from being hit by a motorist in his front yard on Saturday afternoon, his father said Sunday.

At about  6:55 p.m. Evan Haines was run over by a older woman who stopped to pick up a chest of drawers Evan's family left along the road for anyone to take. They had just purchased  a new one, said the father, George Etienne.

When the driver asked Evan to help, he got behind the vehicle to load the piece of furniture.

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The car was in reverse and when she stepped on the gas pedal, it sped backwards, hit Evan, went into a neighbor's yard and hit the neighbor's car.

Etienne spoke between trips to St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach. There his son is critical but stable condition. He didn't have head or heart  injuries.

His lungs collapsed and he has broken ribs and shattered femur.

Evan is a student at Storm Grove Middle School.

According to what Etienne heard immediately after the accident, the woman said her foot slipped and apparently hit the gas pedal. 

Police are investigating.

"I can't believed this happened in my front yard" along a two-lane section of Schumann Drive in a residential area of small homes, the father said.

The accident  happened just after the family returned from a boating trip on the Indian River Lagoon. Etienne was inside taking a shower and his older son, Tyler, 15, was cleaning up the boat that was in the front driveway at their home in the 1200 block of Schumann Drive.

"It has been a good day" until the accident, the father said. Now relatives are flying in and the injured boy's mother, Ashley, has been staying at the hospital.