Earlier this year, students in an after-school self-defense class taught by Conrad Woodall at Kootenai Classical Academy learned a quick lesson about what to do if it seemed like they would be hit by a car.  

“You hope no kid has to use it,” Woodall said.  

One of his students, sixth grader Lexington Russell, paid close attention to the skill. 

During a family trip to Tacoma at the end of July, she had a split second to put what she learned into practice when she was hit by an SUV.  

“I looked, but there was a tree hanging over the road so I couldn’t see the car,” Lexington said.  

Her uncle called her name in time for her to see the car bearing down on her. 

“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, a car is going to hit me.’ I remembered what Mr. Woodall taught me and I was OK,” Lexington recalled, “You go up and kind of surf the hood and push yourself off it. I wasn’t even scared.”  

Moving out of the forward and backward motion of the car is what she was trying to avoid. When the vehicle came to a stop, Lexington was in one piece without any injuries. 

Her mother, Angela Rannalli, said she had prepared herself for the worst when she heard the commotion of the collision. 

“In my head, I was thinking, my daughter’s about to get hit, brace yourself, this could end up in the hospital, she could end up dead,” Rannalli said.  

Instead, Lexington appeared to be fine.   

“The car never actually had contact with her except for her hands, it was amazing. She had not a scratch, not a bruise, nothing,” Rannalli said. 

After she was hit by the SUV, Lexington was worried about the rest of her family and the occupants of the other vehicle panicking. She tried to talk them through what happened. 

Rannalli noted that she had almost pulled her daughters out of the self-defense class for the upcoming year before the car crash, but now she’s learned the value of even a short life lesson in an accident-prone world. 

The impact of the short lesson was moving to Woodall when he reflected on what happened. 

“They just kinda hit you in the heart, that’s why you do what you do,” Woodall said.

Now, Lexington is free to play with her rat, Preston, and her new guinea pig, Einstein. 

She hopes to someday be a veterinarian.    

Defense class training at Kootenai Classical Academy takes place throughout the school year and is open to fourth grade through high school.

    Lexington Russell demonstrates how she avoided injury after recently being hit by an SUV in Tacoma. She was able to use vehicle injury reduction skills she learned in defense class at Kootenai Classical Academy where she is a sixth-grader.