FAIRFIELD, Ohio -- At 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 30, 14-year-old Alex McCulley was crossing Wade Mill Road in Ross Township with three of his friends when a car speeding down the remote two-lane road struck him.
The force of the impact snapped a rearview mirror off the car; the driver sped away. It left Alex in far worse condition: a shattered femur, a fractured foot and internal injuries so severe that he spent the next 10 days in a hospital bed.
On Monday night, his mother, Amanda Wortham, still wasn’t sure when her son -- swaddled in bandages and casts and fitted with a neck brace -- would be ready to return home.
"If it was an accident, accidents happen, but (the driver) should’ve stopped to make sure my son was alive," Wortham said through tears Monday night. "You should’ve stopped to make sure he was not dead on the side of the road."
Doctors told Wortham that McCulley may not walk on his own again for months, she said.
"Every day we get a step forward, and then it feels like we fall a step back," she said. "He's upset -- he's hurt, he's angry, he feels that he's in this hospital and whoever hit him is living their normal life."
The only clue left at the scene was a broken-off sideview mirror belonging to a black recent-model Ford Lincoln or Crown Victoria.
"If you’ve heard any details, if you’ve heard anyone say anything, if you’ve seen a car fitting that description with a missing black mirror, please call the Ross Township police," Wortham said. "Please."
