Last Wednesday, Rebecca Willis says she was left on the pavement after trying to cross Bethany Home Road at 10th Street.
“Next thing I know, I remember I was standing up and I felt like a car hit me — literally — a truck and was like wow that truck just hit me,” Willis said. “Before I could finish that thought he like gunned it and hit me and I went under the truck.”
She says a truck flashed its lights and the driver waved her across, but then hit her.
She was carrying a longboard, a hobby she picked up hoping to join in her kids’ interests. She says doctors told her it could have absorbed some of the blow from the truck.
“They said something about ‘if you weren't holding your board, you would be dead’,” Willis said.
Willis is left with road rash, damage to her ribs and her dominant left hand in a sling.
“I just know that my hand is crushed,” Willis said. “My wrist is crushed.”
She says strangers stopped their cars to help her out of the road so she could call an ambulance.
“You saved my life,” Willis said. “You’re heroes. Thank you.”
Now she’s hoping for help trying to find the couple that helped her.
“Another car could have come along and not seen me curled up in the road, especially with how dark it was,” Willis said. “And you saved my kids lives because I’m still here for them.”
The mother of three didn’t file a police report but wants to find the driver responsible for hitting her.
"Accountability is the number one rule in our house, to the point where they roll their eyes when they hear it,” Willis said.
She says she worries all the time now about the danger that could be out there to pedestrians.
“What if it was a little kid and not me?”
Willis’ friend has set up a GoFundMepage for her medical expenses from an expected surgery.