KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City man is recovering after he was hit by a driver who left him on the side of the road over the weekend.
Brandon Breckenridge was at a holiday party with friends Saturday night when they got separated and he found himself without his cellphone.
“I have a tendency — I don’t like to sit on my wallet. When I’m at a table, I’ll usually sit my wallet down and my phone down on it,” Breckenridge said.
With no phone to call a ride-sharing service or cash to hail a cab, Breckenridge decided to walk to his apartment at Briarcliff.
“It’s probably a 40-minute walk, so it’s not the end of the world,” Breckenridge said.
He was walking north on Highway 169 around 12:30 a.m. Sunday and had just crossed the Buck O’Neil Bridge when a driver hit him head on with their vehicle and drove off.
“All I remember is that it felt like a freight train,” Breckenridge said. “I instantly knew how bad it was because my leg was just dangling.”
Breckenridge said he sat on the side of the road waving for help, but no one ever stopped.
“People ignored that there was this man sitting on the side of the road and went around him,” his friend, Autumn Arvidson, said as she sat at his bedside at Truman Medical Center. “It’s pretty heartbreaking.”
Someone eventually called 911 at some point.
“It seems like 45 minutes to an hour, and then I heard an ambulance. And it was the biggest sigh of relief because I thought I was going to die,” Breckenridge said.
The impact of the crash broke his tibia and fibula in his right shin.
“It was a compound fracture, so my leg was split open,” Breckenridge explained. “The only thing that was holding it together was skin.”
Breckenridge was rushed to the Level One Trauma Center at Truman Medical where he underwent a blood transfusion and two surgeries. He was in good spirits when FOX4 visited him in his hospital room, but he wants the person who hit him to right their wrong.
“Most people are good,” Breckenridge said. “There are bad apples out there, but I haven’t lost my faith in humanity.”
Breckenridge will undergo another surgery on Wednesday. He was supposed to move to Omaha in two weeks for a new job, but will now spend the next eight months nursing his leg back to full health.
He was unable to get a good description of the vehicle that hit him, but anyone with information is asked to call Kansas City police.
Breckenridge’s family have started a GoFundMe page to help cover his long-term medical expenses.
