Couple attacked while trying to save boy from hot car

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Couple Attacked While Trying to Save Boy from Hot Car
Couple Attacked While Trying to Save Boy from Hot Car


LONGMONT, Colo. - A concerned couple calls police about a young boy left in a hot car.

But when the cops arrived, it's the good Samaritans who needed an ambulance.

The boy's mother is charged with running over the couple who called 911 on her.

Now, Shannon Dominguez, 43, is confined to a wheelchair. Doctors say she may never walk the same again.

"Every day is a chore. Every day is stressful," says Dominguez.

They never could have imagined calling police to help a child left alone in a hot car would end up like this.

"All four windows were rolled up. And it was in the direct sun. It scares the heck out of me. It's some innocent child might die," says Dominguez.

Now, she's dealing with a crushed left leg.



"My tibia has a spiral break. My fibula has three breaks in it. They put a rod in there," she says.

Dominguez and her boyfriend Alan Mason say Kristina Riddell, 27, ran over them with her white Honda on June 7 just after 1: 30 p.m.

"She heard me on the phone with police," says Dominguez, who called for help when she saw the boy alone in the car.

The drama unfolded in front of a Dollar Tree store at 2255 Main St. in Longmont.

Dominguez says Riddell got mad, threatened to beat her up and punched Mason in the face.

Dominguez says they were standing in an empty parking space when Riddell then got in her car, backed up and accelerated towards them, hitting Dominguez first, then Mason.

He went over the hood.

"She had her windows down, so I grabbed onto the door. She drug me about 20 feet. I realized she was not going to stop, so I let go. I tumbled in the parking lot," says Mason. He suffered internal and external bruising.

Police soon arrested Riddle at her home at 1208 Meadow St. in Longmont.

She wasn't there when FOX31 Denver stopped by Tuesday.

"She gets to work every day. She gets to cook for her family. She gets to go out on the weekends with her family. I can't do any of that," says Dominguez.

Doctors tell Dominguez she may never walk normal again.

For now, she's bound to a wheelchair.

"It's hard. We use to be so active and now I can't do much of anything," she says.

But the couple says if they could do it over again, they would.

"If it means helping a child, I'd do it in a heartbeat," says Dominguez.

"We might do it a little different next time, says Mason. "Probably call 911, then leave."

Riddell has an extensive criminal record, including arrests for assault, domestic violence and multiple driving violations.

Now, she's facing charges of hit-and-run, assault and child abuse.

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