12-year-old hit & killed on way to Sanger Unified school bus stop

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A Fresno family is in turmoil after a car crash killed a 12-year-old as she walked to catch her bus to school.

A pickup truck hit Mina Vang as she crossed the street about a half-mile from Wash Elementary School -- where the bus stop is for kids in nearby neighborhoods. No matter what route the kids take to their bus stop, the sidewalks end and they're stuck choosing between crossing the street or walking in traffic.

Yang Vang needs to know exactly how it happened. Still wearing the visitor's badge from Community Regional Medical Center, the mourning father walked the road where his 12-year-old daughter died Monday morning on her way to school.

He never got the chance to ask her about the deadly crash.

"When I got there, I never spoke to her," Vang said. "She was already in serious condition."

CHP investigators say Mina Vang walked onto Armstrong in front of a pickup truck at about 6:30 a.m., while it was still dark because of Daylight Saving Time.

They say the driver stopped right after he hit her and he told them he couldn't have avoided the accident.

"He said he was traveling at about 25 to 30 miles an hour, which is below the speed limit, at which time he said never saw the pedestrian," said CHP Officer Victor Taylor, a public information officer for the Fresno CHP division.

Investigators say the driver wasn't drinking or using drugs and the physical evidence leads them to believe he really was driving below the speed limit.

Vang says his daughter walked this route every day to catch a bus to Washington Academic Middle School, where she was in 7th grade. So she knew cross traffic wouldn't stop, but crosswalks are hard to find here, and he says just about every kid in the neighborhood took the same route as his daughter.

"They cross this road here to get to the other side and they walk back straight to the bus stop," Vang said.

Mina's mother was actually working at CRMC when her daughter came in for treatment but didn't know about it until after a social worker called her husband.

CHP officers say they're still investigating to make sure the driver's story checks out, but right now, they're not charging him with any crime.