'Miracle Baby' Born After Mom Killed in Hit-and-Run

A suspect has been charged
By Luke Roney,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 28, 2015 6:32 AM CST
'Miracle Baby' Born After Mom Killed in Hit-And-Run
Karla Y. Leanos was killed by a hit-and-run driver on Christmas Eve.   (Megan Crepeau/Chicago Tribune via AP)

A tragedy was followed quickly by a miracle on Christmas Eve when a hit-and-run driver plowed into a pregnant woman as she crossed a Chicago street. Karla Y. Leanos, 26, the mother of three and seven months pregnant, was killed in the incident, which happened just before 10pm in the 4200 block of West Ogden Avenue. Emergency responders, however, were able to deliver her baby boy, whose condition reportedly stabilized on Christmas Day and who is expected to survive. "That is a miracle baby," Rick Page tells NBC Chicago; surveillance cameras at Page's nearby bike shop captured the accident. "It was really gruesome," he tells ABC Chicago, which reports video shows Leanos saw the car coming but couldn't get out of its path. The impact, Page says, knocked her out of her boots.

Video shows the driver did have a green light, but police say he was traveling fast and didn't stop at the scene. On Sunday, Silvestre Garcia, 22, was charged with two felonies—DUI and leaving the scene of an accident causing death—and two misdemeanor DUI counts, along with being cited for driving with an open alcohol container and having a defective windshield, the Chicago Tribune reports. "I'm heartbroken for her kids, her family," a friend of Leanos' tells NBC. Meanwhile, Garcia's bond has been set at $750,000, per the Tribune. (This "miracle baby" was born 15 weeks early aboard a cruise ship.)

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