Backpack Helps Save Life of 12-Year-Old Who Was Hit by Car, Family Says

The family of a 12-year-old girl who officials say was hit by a car on her first day of school in Wisconsin is crediting her backpack with helping save her life.

The Kaukauna Police Department responded to the incident around 3:31 p.m. local time on Tuesday, Sept. 2, a department spokesperson told PEOPLE in a statement. Their investigation determined the girl was struck by a vehicle exiting a Kwik Trip parking lot while riding her electric scooter on a sidewalk.

She was transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police added. The incident remains under investigation.

In a GoFundMe, loved ones identified the victim as Skylynn Banick, who had just started seventh grade.

“According to her and her brother’s account, Skylynn thought the driver had stopped for her. As she crossed, she was hit and pulled under the car, dragged over 60 feet until bystanders flagged the driver down,” the organizers wrote. “Men at the scene lifted the vehicle to free her.”

“Her backpack saved her life. It became wedged between the tire and wheel well, preventing the car from pulling her completely under,” Banick’s loved ones continued. “The driver, not realizing she had hit Skylynn, kept going until people rushed to stop her.”

Fundraiser organizers say she suffered “severe road burns across her shoulders, back, ankles and feet,” in addition to pain and swelling in her legs and feet.

“With a loud thud and the feeling of the car just coming at me, I immediately knew I was run over,” Skylynn told ABC affiliate WBAY.

“My brother and I were screaming. I was trying to kick the bottom of the car so they would hear me,” she added.

Her father, Matthew Banick, learned about the incident via a text from her mother, the outlet reported.

“I was super, super angry, and then I walked into the [hospital] room, I started crying,” he told the station. “It’s hard to see and hear her talk about all these things that kids don’t come out of.”

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The Banick family wrote in an update on the fundraiser that Skylynn is now home from the hospital but is experiencing pain due to her road rash, as well as nightmares and trouble sleeping.

The loved ones who organized the fundraiser could not immediately be reached by PEOPLE.

“Skylynn is a bright, kind-hearted girl who always worries about others before herself. Now, she needs our community to rally around her,” they wrote.