17-year-old girl getting off school bus struck by car in Zebulon

ZEBULON, NC (WTVD) -- Zebulon Police said a 17-year-old girl walking off the school bus was hit by a car just after 3 p.m. Tuesday at Carpenter Road and Zebulon Road.

A white Ford sedan apparently hit the teen and then left the scene, but was caught.

The girl was taken to the hospital. The extent of her injuries was not immediately known, but her father told ABC11 she will come home Tuesday night.

Zeferino Garcia, the father of the girl said he helped stop the driver -- even daring him to run him over at the end of the cul-de-sac.

"He said he didn't see her but someone else said she just moved to where she was, which is the outside of the road," an emotional Garcia told ABC11. "How can you not see somebody from the distance when the sun is shining? If it were dark, if it were raining I understand but I mean, look at that."

The car sustained damage to the front bumper.

Ray Leon, a neighbor, described the impact, which he heard while waiting for his niece to get off the bus.

"it was more like a 'whack.' It would make anybody turn around and look," Leon said. "I saw the car coming. It swerved just a little bit and the car hit her. It went straight down the road. It went straight down the road like it wasn't nothing."

Alonza King, the father of a 14-year-old that gets off the bus at the same stop said there have been complaints that buses couldn't pull all the way down Carpenter vs. dropping off at the corner there at Highway 96.

"I'm thankful it was not my child because if it had been my child, I'm not sure how I'd be reacting right now," King said. ""If the buses were coming and dropping them off like they'd been doing it wouldn't be a problem."