Teenage hit-and-run victim pleads for driver to surrender

NORTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Roswell police are looking for a driver who they say hit a teenager and kept going.

Tyra Rankin told Channel 2's Mike Petchenik that she was crossing Alpharetta Highway near Mansell Road on Nov. 14.

“I saw the car coming down this way. I didn’t feel like running, so I backed onto the median. Then I saw him coming to the median,” the high school senior said.

Rankin admitted that she was jaywalking on the busy road, but said that when she saw cars coming, she didn’t dart out into traffic. She said it appeared that the driver of the car that hit her was aiming at her.

“I saw him swerve and I got scared because I was, like, ‘I think he’s trying to hit me,’” she said. “I just seen my death happen. He hit me and I flipped over the car.”

Rankin’s friend saw the impact and stopped to help her.

“I went to the hospital,” she said. “I’m so thankful I had no cuts, no bruises, nothing broken.”

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Police told Petchenik that it was dark and the road was full of cars, but someone who hit a person would have known it and should have stopped.

“Go ahead and turn yourself in,” said Officer Zachary Frommer. “No sense in hiding out. We’ll find you and we’ll talk to you.”

Frommer said detectives are looking for any surveillance video from nearby businesses or from the MARTA bus that Rankin had been on moments before the impact.

“There’s always lots of people around there, so hopefully somebody saw something,” he said.

Rankin’s mother, Alicia, said she’s amazed that her daughter walked away just sore and with no serious injuries.

“I’m thankful my daughter was able to be thrown up in the air and back down without a crack in her body. It’s only by God’s grace and mercy that brought her through,” she said.

Rankin and her mother told Petchenik that they hope the driver will come clean.

“If y’all know him, tell him to turn himself in because that’s messed up,” Rankin said.

Cox Media Group