A traffic controller who was struck down by the driver of an SUV earlier this week in Burnaby, B.C. sustained serious injuries and remains in hospital.
The flagger suffered a concussion and leg injuries in a shocking hit-and-run incident caught on video.
The video captured by a bystander shows a flagger directing traffic Wednesday, at a site where construction crews were re-paving a road. A white SUV sits in a newly paved road section closed off from traffic.
The driver of the SUV appears agitated that they can’t merge into traffic and angry that the flagger isn't stopping the other vehicles to let them move in.
Without warning, the vehicle suddenly accelerates, knocking down the traffic controller, merging into traffic and then speeding off.
Jesse Prasad was nearby, heard lots of honking and rushed over to help the flagger lying on the road.
“She was conscious. She was saying, ‘Can you move me up? I want to stand up’,” he told CTV Vancouver.
What the video didn’t show, police say, is the driver became involved in a second altercation with another flagger a little further along the construction zone, hitting him as well before speeding away. That flagger received cuts scrapes and bruises, but was not seriously injured.
Shortly after police arrived at the first hit-and-run scene, they received a complaint about a woman assaulting two children on a nearby street about a kilometre away.
“Upon arrival at the assault incident, it was learned that the female assault suspect was the suspect driver of the offending vehicle from the hit and run in the construction zone on 10th Ave,” Burnaby RCMP said in a news release.
The children involved were related to the suspect. The Ministry of Children and Family Development was contacted and is now involved in an investigation.
The alleged driver, a woman in her 30s from Surrey, was placed into custody. She has not yet been charged, but is facing possible criminal and/or Motor Vehicle Act charges, RCMP say.
“In all my police work, I've never seen anything like this,” RCMP Staff Sgt. John Buis told reporters Thursday.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s David Molko
