I was hit by a car and the police wouldn’t send an ambulance for me

At age 22 and a recent college graduate, living in Detroit for her first job after college was supposed to be Anna Smith’s most prominent life-altering event of 2012, not being hit by a car.

I was picked up in my suburban Detroit apartment by my date that night, Will, who I had gone out with two times before; we went to a fancy restaurant, a bar after that, and then we decided to get milkshakes across the street. The next thing I know, I was lying in the road covered in blood.

I heard people talking about how someone had been hit by a car. I panicked. I couldn’t feel my legs, then I realised they were talking about me.

After two months in a wheelchair, eight different surgeries, eight months in a cast, ten months off of work, 13 months of physical therapy and two years of waiting for the Detroit Police Department to get in trouble for not doing their job properly that night, I still remember that day seven years ago like it was yesterday.

After I realised it was me who had been hit, I asked to be moved out of the road but no one did. Then an ambulance came - but no thanks to the police officers on the scene. I woke up in the hospital and saw Will and my parents standing there and was confused about how they knew each other.

I found out that I had been hit by a vehicle; split my head open, broke my nose, broke my arm, tore tendons in my wrist and my hand, broke my leg in four places, shattered my ankle and tore my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). I was told that I would have to go into surgery for my ankle and get a skin graft on my hand to fix the tendons right away.

The next day my mom went to the Detroit Police Station to get the accident report, and two years later, four police officers were reprimanded for not doing their job properly that night; they didn’t call the ambulance to get me to the hospital safely, two off-duty firemen crossing the street the other way did.

The events that were uncovered that led up to those police officers getting punished all started when my mom read the accident report. It said the road was a three-lane road when really it was seven lanes, and that there were no visible injuries to me. But I was broken and covered in blood.

So my mom hired a private investigator and an accident reconstructionist to find out what really happened to me.

As I was crossing the road two men were crossing in the opposite direction - the off duty firemen - and they were the ones who called an ambulance from their department for me.

Will called the police three times after I was hit by the car, but every time they hung up on him. I went onto the hood while it continued to drive and once it stopped, I flew off.

They said they were too busy and if I needed an ambulance ride Will would have to take me.

When my mom confronted the lady who conducted the police report about its falsities, she said that the four police officers waited on the scene for four hours and when they realised I wouldn’t die, they left.

Since the Detroit Police Department is so busy, they would have only done a full investigation if I had died.

The driver in the car who hit me didn’t get a ticket or anything, but finally, two years later a new police chief came into place who knew my mom and the police officers on duty that night were reprimanded for not doing their job.

For probably six months after the accident, I wouldn’t cross the road or even go in a parking lot. I would have whoever was driving me drop me off right at the door.

I was definitely depressed after; I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Immediately after I was fine but then three months later I had to go in for another round of surgeries. I had surgeries for another two and a half years after that.

When I was healing for the first couple of months I couldn’t be by myself because I couldn't walk. And I couldn’t be in a wheelchair because my arm was broken so I couldn’t wheel. So I had a walker that I had to hop with on the leg that wasn’t broken.

I had to have someone in the house 24/7. My parents, their friends and mine had to stay home from work a lot.

Today I have anxiety that stems from the accident and I suffer from leg and back pain, but I’m not afraid of crossing the street anymore.

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