The father of a 15-year-old girl who was injured by a hit-and-run driver in the Rimbey area is offering a reward for information about the motorist who fled the scene.
Marisha MacLure, of Blackfalds, snuck out of her home to attend a house party in a rural area on Thursday night. She remembers leaving the party at about 2 a.m. Friday and walking with a group of friends back to their vehicle.
At first, everything along the gravel road was dark and “I didn’t see any cars coming at all,” she recalled.
But when MacLure turned and ran back towards the house to pickup something she’d left behind, “a car came out of nowhere” while she was crossing the road.
She said the black or dark-green sports car with headlights on was travelling so fast, she didn’t have time to move out of the way.
Although she was wearing a white sweater with colourful stripes, MacLure said the car bearing a red Chevy emblem didn’t slow down or swerve, but drove right over her, breaking the femur bone in her thigh and giving her bad road rash.
She never saw whether the driver was male or female, or whether there were passengers in the vehicle. But she was surprising the car didn’t stop.
“It makes me very upset. I know they saw me. They must have known they hit something,” said MacLure, who was in so much pain, her friends decided to drive her to hospital in Red Deer instead of calling 911 and waiting for an ambulance.
Her broken leg bone was set with two plates by hospital authorities, who notified Red Deer City RCMP.
MacLure, who was just released from hospital on Tuesday, said doctors told her if the break was a little higher up, it would have severed a major artery and she would have bled to death.
Her father, Rocky Stratton of Blackfalds, is so angry that someone treated his daughter with so little consideration that he is offering a $500 award for any information about the hit-and-run vehicle. “Even if it was someone’s pet you wouldn’t do that. With a human life it’s even worse,” said Stratton, who was terrified upon receiving a 4 a.m. phone call from the hospital and realizing his daughter wasn’t home.
When he later spoke to the teenager, “Marisha asked me if she was grounded and I said, ‘Well, you did that yourself,” said Stratton, referring to her extensive injuries.
While Stratton does not condone MacLure sneaking out of the house, he’s furious with the driver who left his injured daughter lying in the road. “There was no reason to take off like that.”
Police are investigating.
The investigation was initially hampered by the fact that MacLure’s friends did not call 911 immediately after the hit and run happened. ‘
If the friends had called 911, the service’s tracking service would have made the accident’s location known.
As it is, Sgt. Duncan Babchuk of Sylvan Lake RCMP received the file from Red Deer City RCMP in the mistaken belief the hit and run took place near Sylvan Lake, as MacLure’s friends initially believed.
In fact, Babchuk learned on Tuesday it happened near Rimbey on R.R. 15, close to Centreview Road. He now intends to investigate along with Rimbey RCMP.
“This is not something we are taking lightly. It’s a serious incident,” said Babchuk, who hopes anyone with information will come forward.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com