Staff Reports
A 5-year-old boy was transported by Lifeline helicopter to an Indianapolis hospital Tuesday night after being struck by a car in the Heritage Heights neighborhood.
Bartholomew County Sheriff deputies were sent to Heritage Heights at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday about the boy being struck by a dark blue Honda Accord near where Taylor Drive turns into Continental Drive. Heritage Heights is located south of Taylorsville, west of U.S. 31.
Deputies said the 5-year-old, identified as Neymar Martinez-Pendaz, was in a yard and then went into the street where he was struck.
Martinez-Pendaz was listed in critical condition on Wednesday at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, hospital officials said.
The vehicle that hit the boy was going west in the 6000 block of Continental, driven by a 16-year-old juvenile who did not have a driver’s license, deputies said.
Deputies cautioned that the streets inside Heritage Heights are private drives and not public streets, meaning they are not subject to traffic enforcement by officers.
The speed limit is posted at 15 miles per hour on Continental, but deputies said it is still under investigation how fast the juvenile was going when the car struck the 5-year-old.
Both the driver and the child are residents of Heritage Heights.
Accident reconstructionists from the Columbus Police Department and Indiana State Police are working on the crash report and continuing to investigate, deputies said.
