A Massachusetts father is speaking only with necn after he was run down by a hit and run driver Sunday along Main Street in North Andover, Massachusetts.
"I do feel very fortunate to be living right now, I could be very dead," said 44-year-old Donald Ball from his room at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
The trauma surgeon who treated him says Ball broke his femur, fractured three ribs, and had a laceration to his liver and bleeding of his right kidney.
The dad, who has a 2-year-old girl, says he had just made a repair to his motorcycle in a parking spot in front of a sandwich shop at 65 Main Street, around 6:20 p.m., when he believes he reached down to grab his helmet.
He didn't see the car heading towards him, and doesn't remember anything after that.
"I only remember a mask coming over my face, and after that I lost consciousness," he said.
Now, the North Andover Police Department is appealing to the public, asking them to be on the lookout for the vehicle involved.
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That car is described as a white older-model Ford Taurus or Mercury Sable.
Police say the driver was traveling east on Main Street and may have damage to the passenger and front sides.
"I don't see how they couldn't have seen me, honestly," Ball said. "There's no way 25 miles an hour is so fast that you can't see."
However, police say the driver kept on going.
Ball says he'll now be out of work while he recovers, and can't walk.
He said he wants the driver to know this:
"I am angry, I am upset," he said. "These past few days have been excruciating pain."
Ball is just thankful he wasn't holding his little girl at the time.
"I could have been holding my child, putting my child in a baby carrier," he explained.
He should be able to walk again - hopefully, he says, in two to three weeks.
Anyone with information is urged to call Officer Julie Nigro at the North Andover Police Dept at (978) 683-3168.
