8-Year-Old Victim Happy Driver Was Found Guilty: 'I Don't Want That To Happen Again'
BRIGHTON, Colo. (CBS4) - An 8-year-old girl who was paralyzed in a crash caused by a driver who was high on drugs says she's happy the jury found him guilty.
Jamille Hernandez's back and neck were broken in Westminster in February when David Alva smashed the vehicle he was driving into the minivan she was traveling in with her mother. Alva had been trying to elude police before the crash.
An Adams County jury on Thursday found Alva guilty of vehicluar assault.
"It makes me feel happy that he's in jail," Hernandez told CBS4. "I don't want that to happen again."
Hernandez's injuries so severe she had to stay at Children's Hospital Colorado for nearly 3 months. She is now in a wheelchair and doctors it's likely she will never walk again.
"(It has been) seven months that I've had to re-learn how to take care of my daughter," her mother Sandra Acuna said. Acuna suffered severe internal injuries in the crash as well.
Alva's trial lasted three days. Now that it's over, Hernandez said she plans to write a letter to the suspect asking him about how he feels about what he did to her.
"He was all doped up on meth and weed and he just didnt care," Acuna's husband Ted Chavez said.
Alva now faces up to 64 years in prison. Hernandez's family says whatever the sentence is, it won't be enough.
"All I want is my Jamille," Acuna said. "I miss her being like the same Jamille that walked with me that night."
Sentencing is set for Dec. 1.
