“It was scary. It was petrifying. It was the worst day of my entire life,” Samantha Sparkman told Inside Edition. The mom and her two daughters were back-to-school shopping when their vehicle was hit and flipped over in the Walmart parking lot.
A family is lucky to be alive after getting caught in the middle of a police chase involving a stolen car in Franklin, Ohio.
Mom Samantha Sparkman, and her daughters, Hannah and Holly, were in their SUV in the parking lot at Walmart, where they were doing some back-to-school shopping.
A police officer chased the suspect into the parking lot, and said he was keeping his distance, because there could be shoppers there.
But the driver he was chasing wasn’t so careful. Police say the fleeing suspect hit Sparkman’s vehicle, flipping it over.
The suspect took off running before he was nabbed by bystanders and taken into custody.
Back at the overturned vehicle, the mom and her two daughters were trapped inside, pleading to get out.
“It was scary. It was petrifying. It was the worst day of my entire life,” Sparkman told Inside Edition.
First responders used the jaws of life to rescue the family. One of the girls was taken out through the windshield and the other was rescued through a hole they cut into the roof, the family said.
Amazingly, mom and Holly walked away with scratches and bruises from the accident. Hannah suffered a broken collar bone.
But mom realizes that even with what happened, they got lucky.
“I absolutely could have lost a child,” Sparkman said.
The suspect is being held at the county jail and faces over half a dozen charges.
