Squeegee Kid Recovering After Being Hit By Car
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A little boy was trying to make a dollar, and at the snap of a finger, it turned to tragedy.
Savannah Elligson, mother of a squeegee kid who was struck by a car is speaking out, telling her son's story of survival.
"It's like something out of a movie, watching that video it just keeps running through my head, and running through my head every day, it won't stop," Elligson said.
It was October 27 when 10-year-old Gordon was working as a squeegee boy on the corner of President and Pratt, cleaning the windshield of a car.
As the driver hands him cash, the light turns green and he urges him to be careful.
The 10-year-old darts across the street where he is struck, left lying motionless in the roadway.
Around the corner at home, Savannah quickly gets the news from one of Gordie's friends.
"When he said he got hit by a car, I couldn't get out nothing, I thought for sure he was dead," Elligson said.
Gordie was rushed to the hospital, where he stopped breathing.
"All I kept saying was, 'God please take me, please don't take my baby, any pain he can endure I will take it, because that's my baby," Elligson said.
But, through a miracle, he came back to life seven minutes later.
"That's when I knew God for sure was definitely there the whole time, that Gordon has a guardian angel with him at every minute," Elligson said.
His mouth wired shut, fractured bones and three plastic surgeries later, Gordon continues to recover at Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital.
"Tears of happiness, but tears of sorrow too, because I couldn't imagine being 10-years-old and hit by a car like that," Elligson said.
Squeegee boys have been a growing controversy over the years, and drivers have often complained about the children who wash windshields at downtown Baltimore intersections.
Mayor Catherine Pugh has backed them, investing money to help find them year-round jobs.
"Don't go out there and throw punches at these kids, make names for them, maybe help them," Elligson said.
Elligson said some depend on the window washing, often for more cash flow for a family struggling to get by.
"Don't judge a book by its cover, how do they know its not their kid out there? I never thought it would be mine," Elligson said.
The mother said this was one of the first times her boy was washing windshields. Her son, Gordie, is recovering and doing better. She said the doctor thinks he could be out of the hospital within the next few weeks.
The family has started a GoFundMe page to help with the hospital bills.
Despite being left with thousands of dollars in hospital bills in the midst of the holidays, she said she still feels blessed.
"You never know, for that one second, it can be taken like that, he was given his back, I was given mine back because if he would be gone that would be my life," Elligson said.
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