Kiara Bowling was left in critical condition after a white car driven by two brothers, ages 7 and 4, struck her from behind on Thursday while she was crossing 35th Avenue in Oakland and walking a friend's dog. By Friday, her family said the woman in her early 30s was still fighting for her life at Highland hospital.
The crash happened just after 9 a.m., and a Citizen app video showed the boys lying on the sidewalk as Bowling was rushed away in an ambulance. The 7-year-old fractured both legs and the 4-year-old was recovering from a concussion, with both children later treated at UCSF Benioff Children's hospital.
For Bowling’s family, the injury was especially devastating because they said she had returned to Oakland after finishing a summer program at Yale for her JD and was in her last semester at Cal State East Bay. She had also recently been selected as Miss California Regency International 2026, a title her family said reflected how much she gave back to the people around her.
Her cousin, Princess Davis, said Bowling had blood on her brain and would likely need two surgeries. Another relative, Lavelle Shah-Marquis, described the scene as loud and said it was bad, bad, a reaction that matched what residents saw after the crash. Ali, meanwhile, said the older boy was asking after his younger brother and wanted to know whether he was okay.
The parents of the boys said they were sleeping when the children somehow got the keys and drove away in the car. Their father had come home around 6 a.m. after driving for Uber, but the family has not explained how two children that young were able to leave with the vehicle or how they ended up on the street in the first place.
That missing piece now sits at the center of the case. Bowling remains the person carrying the heaviest cost, while investigators and family members are left with the same unanswered question: how the children got the keys and set the crash in motion.
