Mom Just Asks Driver: Apologize Even As She Progresses, Hit-And-Run Victim Remains In Critical Condition

Sat., Jan. 2, 1999

By Adam Lynn adaml@spokesman.com

Carol Jones harbors no ill will toward the hit-and-run driver who ran down her daughter this week.

Jones just hopes the person will take responsibility for the Tuesday collision that nearly killed 32-year-old Wendy O’Brien.

“We don’t hold anything against them, not really,” Jones said Friday as she maintained a vigil next to her daughter’s hospital bed. “We’d just like for them to come forward and say they’re sorry.”

For the third straight day Friday, O’Brien was listed in critical condition at Sacred Heart Medical Center.

O’Brien suffered broken bones, internal injuries and head wounds when she was hit on North Monroe Street.

Jones said her daughter has made progress every day since being hit. O’Brien has opened her eyes, squeezed her mother’s hand and tried to get out of bed.

Authorities originally thought she would die.

“She’s a Jones. She’s stubborn,” her mother said. “It’s a long haul, but she’s really hanging in there.”

O’Brien, a mother of three, was hit as she tried to cross Monroe between Fairview and Cleveland avenues.

The Spokane native had been drinking at the nearby Hub Tavern with her mother and their roommate minutes prior to the collision.

Police had no new leads in the case Friday, Cpl. Tom Sahlberg said. Little evidence was left at the scene, and there may have been no witnesses other than the driver and O’Brien, Sahlberg said.

Evidence technicians are scheduled to analyze O’Brien’s clothes next week for paint flecks or other debris left by the vehicle that hit her.

“We may be able to determine year, make and model with a good sample,” Sahlberg said.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call Crime Check at 456-2233.

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