Mother horrified driver didn’t stay
The mother of a teenage boy suffering from a severe concussion after being hit by a car is horrified the driver didn’t call for help.
Sue Buckley is calling on the man to accept responsibility as her son struggles with hallucinations, dizzy spells and headaches, more than two weeks after he was hit.
The driver stayed with the teen initially and asked if he was OK, helped him to his feet and left. But it turned out 15-year-old Jessie Buckley was not OK and had to spend several days in hospital.
Jessie was hit by a car on February 11 on the corner of Glasgow and Birmingham streets in Palmerston North, about 12.30pm.
He said he was crossing the road when a car came quickly around the corner and hit him. ‘‘I woke up on the sidewalk.’’ Jessie said his memory was hazy, but he remembers the man driving the car that hit him was there when he came to. The man asked Jessie his name and if he was OK.
‘‘I said yeah, because I didn’t think anything was wrong at the time.’’
The man told him he had been knocked unconscious for about five to 10 minutes. The man helped him to his feet and left.
Jessie carried on with his day before his mum picked him up, about 5.30pm.
He told her he’d been hit by a car and had a headache.
After visiting family in Palmerston North, the pair drove home to Porirua, where Buckley planned to take Jessie to Wellington Hospital.
On the drive down, he started deteriorating.
When they got to the hospital, he was admitted with a severe concussion and spent three days there.
Jessie’s concussion is so severe he cannot go to school for a full day yet, instead only making it to class for a couple of hours at a time.
The company of too many people was overwhelming and he would spend most of his days at home resting as he always felt sleepy, Buckley said.
Buckley was ‘‘horrified’’ the driver hadn’t called emergency services after hitting her son.
‘‘I can’t understand the fact that if Jessie was unconscious, why he did not do that?’’
The driver needed to come forward and be educated on road safety, she said.
Central District road policing manager Inspector Brett Calkin said if a driver hit someone with their car, it had to be reported to police, but they weren’t required to call emergency services.
‘‘[But] normally people would call an ambulance. Be a decent human being, get out of the vehicle, make sure the [person] is completely OK and seek medical advice.’’
Although a driver may think the person was OK, it could end up being worse than it appeared, Calkin said.
Buckley said her first thought was getting Jessie medical attention, and after he was released from hospital they went to the Porirua police station.
She said they also talked to the Palmerston North police and passed on information she received from a Facebook post about what car could have been involved.
Jessie said he thought it was a dark Honda Integra or Prelude, possibly blue or black, with distinctive rims and tinting.
The driver was the only person in the car. He is described as European, in his early to mid 30s, with light-coloured hair.
A police spokeswoman said the matter was reported to them and officers were looking into it.