Georgianne Hanson, 23, was sentenced Thursday in Bethel to two years in prison for intentionally using a four-wheeler to ram into a mother pushing her 1-year-old daughter in a stroller in Mountain Village.
All of Southwest Alaska was affected by the assault and residents care about the case, said assistant district attorney Bailey Woolfstead.
The state had asked for a sentence of six years, arguing Hanson is dangerous and needs to learn there are consequences for violent acts.
"Not only did she run them down. She sped off, leaving them broken and bleeding," Woolfstead said.
Charging documents in the case say that Hanson was driving with her mother as a passenger on the four-wheeler in Mountain Village on Aug. 28, 2014.
Hanson exchanged insults with 34-year-old Jeanette Myre, the mother walking her young daughter, while driving by. The two began to argue and Hanson allegedly told Myre she was going to hit her with the four-wheeler, according to the charges.
Hanson drove away, then turned around and, "despite her mother's warnings," hit Myre and the stroller, the charges say. The state wrote in a sentencing memo that Hanson accelerated up to 30 mph.
Hanson told an investigating state trooper she was mad at Myre and could not control herself. She initially denied hurting the child, the memo says.
"Jeanette sustained injuries to her left ankle, femur, back, neck, forehead and scalp. (The daughter) received a broken nose and multiple abrasions to her face and head," trooper Sgt. Brent Hatch wrote in the charges.
Myre and her child where taken to the local health clinic by a passerby. They were taken by medevac to Bethel for more intensive care, then on to Anchorage. A persistent infection in the mother's thigh required multiple surgeries, according to the state.
Hanson was arrested and charged with first- and second-degree assault and failure to render aid. She pleaded guilty to a single charge of second-degree assault on June 18. The state dropped the other charges.
Speaking during the sentencing, Myre said she'd been trying to forgive Hanson for the assault.
"It's really hard because my baby was involved," Myre said. "I hope she turns her life around … I pray for her everyday."
"I hope she forgives me, and her family forgives me, for what I did," Hanson said later during the hearing.
"I'm sorry. I'm just really sorry," she said in her brief comments before the court.
In imposing the two-year sentence, Superior Court Judge Dwayne McConnell said he was encouraged by the mutual willingness to forgive. Still, he said, the incident could have been much worse.
"You could have killed either of the victims. You're 23 now? You could have been looking at being in jail until you were 40 or 50," McConnell warned. "In that way, you're a lucky person."