LAKESIDE (CBS 8/CNS) - A fundraising effort was underway Wednesday to help with funeral expenses for a 10-year-old girl who was struck and killed by a runaway car in front of her Lakeside-area home after pushing a toddler out of the vehicle's path, authorities said Wednesday.
Kiera Larsen was playing in her front yard with a 2-year-old child in the 13400 block of Highway 8 Business shortly after 5 p.m. Monday when a parked1999 Mercedes-Benz began rolling in reverse down a sloping driveway, likely because another child had inadvertently shifted the vehicle's transmission out of gear.
Kiera ran behind the vehicle and pushed the toddler out of the way before being run over, according to the California Highway Patrol. Paramedics
took her to Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, where she was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.
More than half of a $30,000 goal had been donated as of Wednesday morning via a GoFundMe page created to help Kiera's family with their upcoming expenses.
''Those of you who had the pleasure of knowing Kiera know that she is such an amazing, beautiful, smart and funny little girl,'' a message on the
website read. ''She truly brings so much love and happiness to so many people.''
Kiera was the third child to be fatally injured in a traffic accident in the San Diego area in less than 24 hours.
About 9 p.m. Sunday, 11-year-old Rochelle Hernandez of Anaheim was killed when her aunt's Lexus sedan was struck from behind by a speeding Toyota Camry at a Border Patrol checkpoint near Buckman Springs Road in Pine Valley.
The car caught fire and became engulfed in flames with Rochelle trapped inside, according to the CHP. She died at the scene of the crash.
Roughly a half-hour later, Stephen Lemelle of Crestline, who had turned 11 the previous day, was fatally injured when the northbound Chevrolet
Trailblazer he was riding in was rear-ended by a Dodge Challenger on Interstate 15 near Gopher Canyon Road in the Escondido area.
The Trailblazer overturned, ejecting the boy into a center median. He died before he could be taken to a hospital.