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2-year-old girl critically injured in wreck is taken off life support

The crash killed her mother, who was 29 years old. Her father, who was driving, is in the hospital with serious injuries

ST. LOUIS — Damonni Hicks, the 2-year-old girl who suffered critical injuries in a crash that killed her mother, was taken off life support and died Tuesday, according to her grandmother, Malinda Stokes.

The girl’s mother, Domonique Hicks, 29, died in the wreck, and her father, the driver, suffered serious injuries and remains in the hospital.

According to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, a Chrysler PT Cruiser that Domonique Hicks and her daughter, both of Florissant, were riding in was traveling southbound on Lewis and Clark Boulevard approaching Halls Ferry Circle.

The driver, identified by Stokes as her daughter's former boyfriend and Damonni's father, continued on Halls Ferry Circle at high speed. He ran a stop sign and struck the curb that surrounds a grass median, sending the car airborne. It struck two trees before coming to rest, police reported.

Stokes used to get daily phone calls from her daughter and granddaughter.

"The doctors want me to pull the plug, but I'm not because I know there's a God," she said last week. Damonni was Hicks’ only child.

Credit: Family
Dominique Hicks and Damonni Hicks

"She was excited,” Stokes said of her daughter. “She was getting ready to move to a better place and start new beginnings with her baby."

The crash Saturday morning was the second time Stokes lost a child.

In September, Eric Hearten, Stokes' 25-year-old son, was shot and killed in north St. Louis County. A man was charged in that case.

There have been other crashes in the area of the Riverview Boulevard and Halls Ferry Circle intersection in recent years.

Since February 2015, the Missouri State Highway Patrol reported 56 people were injured and two, including Hicks, died in crashes near there.

The St. Louis police accident-reconstruction team is handling the investigation into Saturday's crash.

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