Safe return from nearly fatal injuries
Seven weeks ago, Salvador Orosco gathered his daughter into his arms, prayed, and then tried to resuscitate her apparently lifeless body. She had just been struck by a sport utility vehicle, and he later learned she had suffered severe injuries to her brain, kidney, liver, and lungs, and sustained a broken neck.
The SUV never stopped.
The 6-year-old girl, miraculously, survived.
Yesterday, Melisa Orosco, in a white dress with accents of pink, her favorite color, left the Franciscan Hospital for Children in Brighton, but not before playing an interactive video game of tennis in the facility’s game room.
Standing with a control in her hand in front of a television set, she swung her right arm swiftly to serve. She mostly hit aces and declared herself the winner and her computer-generated opponent the loser after every point. On the few occasions when her serve was returned, she fought back with abbreviated backhands, twisting her body.
“I consider it a miracle right now that I am going home with my daughter,’’ Orosco said, placing his hand over his heart as he spoke in Spanish. “When she was hit, I could feel the pain right here,’’ he said, his words translated by an interpreter. “I thought that God just gave her to me, and why would she be taken away.’’
As he spoke, Melisa, still enthralled by the video game, said, “My cousins will be surprised when they see me. They were calling me on the phone. That was not good of the car to just push me and throw me . . . that was bad.’’
Jane O’Brien, the hospital’s medical director, said Melisa doesn’t have a lot of symptoms. “She has neck pain, but it’s pretty minor, and some minor problems with stability, which we expect will correct,’’ she said. “Kids are pretty resilient, and Melisa has had an exceptional recovery.’’
A first-grader at the Thomas Gardner School in Allston, Melisa plans to return to class on Monday. “I can’t wait to see my friends,’’ she said. “I think they will like to see me, too.’’
The hit-and-run occurred on Jan. 8 at 8:20 p.m., as Melisa and her parents walked out of a supermarket near the intersection of Cambridge Street and Harvard Avenue. The vehicle, described as a gray Jeep Cherokee by witnesses, just missed the parents but hit Melisa, who had been holding her mother’s hand. Melisa was rushed to Children’s Hospital and several weeks later started rehabilitation at Franciscan.
Police are still searching for the driver and the Jeep.
Jovita Orosco said yesterday the person who hit her daughter should go to the police and accept responsibility.
“We as human beings can hide, but with God there is no place to hide,’’ she said. “If there is something that someone can do to help, don’t have any doubt about giving information, because now they are doing it for my daughter and in the future they are doing it for themselves.’’
Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department, said she hopes the news of Melisa’s release brings more leads in the case. Earlier this month, police made an arrest in a hit-and-run that happened in November, when a 24-year-old man riding a scooter along Tremont Street near Columbus Avenue in Roxbury was struck and killed. Driscoll said numerous tips helped authorities find the alleged perpetrator.
“We certainly share Melisa’s family’s desire to find out who did this,’’ she said.
Brian R. Ballou can be reached at bballou@globe.com. 
