Rogue River, Ore.- This morning around 7:30 A.M. Jackson County Sheriff’s got a call from a woman driving along East Evans Creek Road in Rogue River. The woman had found a young girl on the side of the road with injuries.
Investigators say the victim is a 13-year-old girl who was likely hit by a car.
“We believe the victim was standing on the side of the road. Perhaps waiting for a school bus or a ride to school,” Sgt. Julie Denney of Jackson County Sheriff’s Department tells NBC5 News.
The 13-year-old victim died following the incident. And even though her name hasn’t been released, her death is still having an impact on neighbors in the area. One of those neighbors being lifelong Rogue River resident Carlene Bray.
Carlene Bray and her family were asleep this morning when the call came in to investigators that the 13-year-old girl had been hit.
As shocking as the case is Bray isn’t surprised that something happened on that stretch of road. She grew up along East Evans Creek Road and she says she’s seen all sorts of accidents near her home. She even had a diesel truck flip over and land in her front yard. But even so, Bray says that she’s never seen something this bad.
” I think this is probably the worst,” Bray says.
Bray feels that as cars speed by, they put kids waiting for the bus along East Evans Creek Road at risk. And Carlene Bray says she thinks she knows why they continue to speed near her home.
“It’s straight here. So when people come and they see that it’s straight they just speed up.”
Bray has personal experience with the speeding cars in her area. When she was young a speeding car almost hit her younger sister while they were crossing the street to get on the bus for school.
Now, as an adult, Carlene Bray says she’s careful with her family along Evans Creek Road.
Bray says, she’s even careful when it comes to her son getting the mail.
“I don’t even let him go out and check the mail very often because he would have to cross the street to do that and that’s very scary for us.”
Following the tragic incident, Jackson County Sheriff’s are encouraging anyone who saw anything along Evans Creek Road, or who lives in the area and has surveillance cameras on their property, to contact them with any information they may have.
Meanwhile the Rogue River community is pulling together in light of the tragedy. A local bank in Rogue River is collecting money for the victims family. That bank is the First Community Credit Union located at 518 E. Main Street in Rogue River.
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