FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. — A search is underway for a driver who hit a 15-year-old girl in a church parking lot as she left a youth service.
Janelle Francois is back home after spending about two weeks in the hospital. The incident happened around 8:45 p.m. on Jan. 14 in the parking lot of Abundant Life Church on Strickland Road in Forsyth County, near Alpharetta.
The teen went on a ventilator after suffering damage to her lungs, liver and intestines. She also had a fractured skull.
“My daughter was in very, very critical condition,” Guileine Francois, the teen’s mother, told Channel 2’s Bryan Mims.
She said Janelle left the church that night and sat down near the back of the parking lot to wait for her ride home. Her daughter told her that’s when she saw an SUV heading straight for her.
Francois said her daughter is now struggling with “bad anxiety.”
“She told me ‘Mom, I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I can see the car coming toward me with the big light,’” Francois said.
The church has no outside cameras. Forsyth County sheriff’s investigators checked video on nearby doorbell cameras, but couldn’t find a good image.
A sheriff’s spokesperson said the vehicle is described as a black SUV that left the parking lot headed toward Atlanta Highway.
Janelle is a cheerleader at Forsyth County High School who treasures the Wednesday night youth church services.
“She said ‘Mom, that’s the only day I have to praise the Lord for everything he has done in our life. I have to go,’” she said. “She loves God a lot. That’s her priority.”
Mark Smith, the senior pastor of Abundant Life Church, visited Janelle in the hospital.
“I said, ‘Janelle, I’m going to pray with you.’ And she gives me a little thumbs up and she’s on the ventilator,” he said.
She couldn’t speak, but she wrote a message on a white board asking the pastor to pray “for my breath to get better so I can say ‘Yahweh.’” Yahweh is the Hebrew name for God.
Smith said he and his congregation have prayed fervently for Janelle and her family.
“We’re praying that she recovers, she gets strong,” he said. “And the mom and dad, just minister to them through this. And we want to show her love.”
Now, the teen’s mother is pleading for the driver to come forward.
“You looked back and you saw that you hit somebody and left the child in the cold weather to die,” she said. “That’s cruel, that’s very cruel.”
The Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office Traffic Specialist Unit is investigating the incident and is seeking the public’s help.
Anyone with information about the vehicle or the driver is urged to call the unit at 770-781-2222, ext. 8535, or email at tlhodges@forsythco.com.
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