SOUTH KINGSTOWN — Sylvia Bogusz tried to speak on Tuesday, and the 17-year-old has acknowledged her family’s presence with hand squeezes and smiles, her mother says.

Grazyna Chylinska, mother of Sylvia Bogusz, carries a photo of her daughter, who remains in intensive care after being hit by a car last month.

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / Bob Breidenbach

When her 23-year-old brother comes into the room, Grazyna Chylinska said, Sylvia plays with his hair and ears. The doctors think some of this behavior is simply reflex, but Sylvia’s mother sees a determined young woman.

“My baby’s still fighting for her life,” Chylinska said. “I believe she will make it.”

She has visited her daughter at Rhode Island Hospital, in Providence, every day since Sylvia was hit by an alleged drunken driver last month, after celebrating her high school graduation with family.

Chylinska was the first to find Sylvia, unconscious and bleeding in the southbound lane of Route 1, 100 feet from where the police say Heidi Harrall, 45, of Omer Drive, struck her, while driving more than 90 mph.

On June 26, three days after she was hit, Sylvia — who sustained a head injury, a broken arm and leg, and pelvis and vertebrae injuries — was upgraded from critical to serious condition. One month later, she is still in the intensive care unit, and her condition as of yesterday afternoon had been downgraded to critical, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Chylinska asked her daughter’s friends to stop visiting the hospital, so Sylvia can rest. She still has a fever, and is still getting fluid drained from her brain. She has also had a stomach infection and several surgeries, including one to drain excess spinal fluid.

To counter the effects of isolation, Chylinska followed a therapist’s advice and made tapes of friends and family talking.

“She’s very emotional,” Chylinska said. “She knows where she is. She understands it. She recognizes it.”

The South Kingstown police said Harrall was driving southbound on Route 1 when she tried to pass a car. She crossed the yellow line, the police said, and then swerved back into the southbound lanes, lost control, and drove into the shoulder, where Sylvia was standing, waiting for her mother to arrive and help with a flat tire.

The attorney general’s office asked District Court Judge Michael A. Higgins to sentence Harrall to a year in jail for violating terms set by the court after two previous misdemeanor arrests — in South Kingstown for vandalism and in North Kingstown for domestic disorderly conduct.

She was instead given two suspended, six-month sentences, along with alcohol and domestic-violence counseling.

Harrall now faces two felony charges in Superior Court: one for driving under the influence resulting in serious injury — which carries a maximum 10-year sentence, $5,000 fine and two-year license suspension — and one for driving to endanger, personal injury resulting, which has a maximum sentence of five years.

Harrall posted $10,000 bail July 13 and is due to meet with the attorney general’s office on Tuesday.

“Obviously, this is a major tragedy for both families,” her sister, Lorri Lister, one of Harrall’s four siblings, said on the phone from Texas. “Our prayers and best wishes are going out to the child and her mother.”

If there is a trial, Lister said, “all of us will be in Rhode Island.”

Chylinska is not focused right now on the legal aspects surrounding the accident, though she is asking the community for its continued support. Instead, she’s focused on her daughter. She has been researching neurology and psychology so she can better understand her daughter’s situation. And she is employing the calming effects of music — especially classical and contemporary music from her native Poland — to help keep Sylvia stimulated.

But as a mother, she can’t help but want to do more.

“I just don’t have the words to explain how much I love her,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “If I could donate everything, the organs and the brains, to her, I’m ready to do this.”

bjeffers@projo.com