When Debbie and Robert Raymond Jr.’s little girl went into remission from leukemia, they were relieved. She no longer had to visit the hospital three times a week for treatment.

What they didn’t know was that she would have her second brush with death before her fifth birthday.

According to her father, since her diagnosis of leukemia over two years ago, 412-year-old Miranda hadn’t felt much like riding her bicycle. The various treatments and medications she had been on left her tired. It wasn’t until recently that she even began riding her pink and blue bicycle, equipped with training wheels.

Friday, around noon, Robert, Miranda and her 7-year-old brother Casey set off to spend some time riding together about a quarter-mile from their home at 8318 Smith Road. “Something we don’t get to do very often,” Robert said.

The children had been lagging a little behind their father, but he had been keeping a close eye on them.

As a white vehicle approached from behind, it slowed to pass them and the female driver waved hello. Little did Robert know this woman would be the key witness to what was about to happen.

The three crossed the road so that they were facing the traffic. Again the children were a couple yards back.

Robert was the first to see the older model, light-blue, four-door sedan round the corner toward them. As the vehicle approached and began to swerve off the road, Robert caught a glimpse of the driver’s face. He was looking toward the floorboard of the car, not at the road.

The car flew past Robert, missing him by a foot. “I just stared at him in disbelief,” Robert said.

He turned to look just as the car swerved further off the road, missing Casey. “He wasn’t even looking when the car came toward him,” he said. When the vehicle clipped Miranda’s bike “it sounded like a sledge-hammer hit the car,” Robert said.

He watched as his daughter’s bike flew upside-down in the air, throwing her more than 20 feet.

He yelled at the car to stop, dropped his bike and took off toward his children. “I didn’t even see any brake lights,” he said.

The car never stopped, but the woman in the white vehicle saw the incident in her rear-view mirror and was able to give officials the first three letters of the license plate.

Robert picked up his youngest child, got on his bike and headed for home. Miranda lay limp in his arms as he pedaled the quarter mile to the house. “She couldn’t even have held on to me if she wanted to,” he said.

As he neared the house, Robert yelled to his wife to call 911, he took Miranda into the kitchen, took off her bike helmet and began to wash away some of the blood.

Two ambulances and numerous firemen quickly arrived on the scene and rushed the little girl to NorthEast Medical Center in Concord.

Friday night Miranda was in fair condition with injuries to her face, chest and arms, as well as three broken bones in her left hand. The doctors planned to keep her overnight for observation and release her sometime today.

Robert remained in disbelief of what had happened.

There have always been rules in the Raymond household about riding bicycles. The children always have to wear their helmets. But now the rules will be different. “The road is off limits,” Robert said. He said from now on the children will ride their bicycles on a secluded street or at the park.

He described Miranda as a sweet, loving girl who is artistic and creative. He said that she had just began to be athletic again. Miranda told her parents last night that she didn’t want to get back on her bike again.

“I just thank God the car wasn’t a foot over,” Robert said. “We would have all gotten hit” and Miranda would have been hurt much worse.

Robert said he does not wish harm toward the man who hit his daughter, but simply “wants the guy to pay for what he did ... I just want justice.”

He also wants parents to know to keep their children from riding bicycles or playing near even remotely busy roads. “We were on our own street just having fun,” he said.

Robert said that with the children wearing helmets, being supervised and riding alongside of the road he thought that they had been cautious, that they were safe. “But I was wrong,” he said.