No leads in apparent Medical Lake hit-and-run

A Medical Lake man who was seriously injured in a hit-and-run Sunday night is lucky to be alive, his family said. Now, they’re hoping to find out what happened to him. Rick Johnson was walking along Geiger Boulevard near exit 272 off of Interstate 90 just before midnight on Jan. 4, heading to a nearby gas station. He was about a block away from the RV park where he lives when something struck him from behind. His daughter, Rose Wilson, said the next thing Johnson remembered was waking up on the side of the road about an hour later. His femur was broken in four places, and he’d also broken five ribs and his ankle. By the time a passing motorist stopped and called for help, Johnson had developed stage two hypothermia from being out in the cold. But Wilson said that cold may have saved his life, by slowing down the bleeding from his leg injury long enough to get him to the hospital. “There was just a perfect combination keeping him alive until help could arrive,” she said. Spokane County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Deputy Mark Gregory said the nature of Johnson’s injuries suggests he was hit by a vehicle. There was no paint transferred to his body and no broken plastic or other marks in the road, Gregory said, making it difficult to tell exactly where the collision took place. And with no cameras nearby and no eyewitnesses who have come forward, investigators don’t have much evidence to investigate. “I’m sure somebody knows what happened and hopefully they come forward, but at this point we don’t have a lot to go on,” Gregory said. Wilson said her father had surgery to repair his leg, and now has a metal rod and plate holding his femur and ankle together. He’s expected to make a full recovery, but his family is hoping someone with information will come forward so they can find out what happened. “They’re 90 percent positive that whoever hit him had to know what they hit because of the amount of damage,” she said. Anyone with information can call Crime Check anonymously at (509) 456-2233.