Atlanta

Woman speaks out for first time after being robbed, run over with her own car twice

ATLANTA — For the first time, we’re hearing from a local woman who was robbed and then run over with her own car - twice.

Channel 2 first showed you video of the attack last month.

Suzanne Hill says she’s lived on Beecher Street in southwest Atlanta for 13 years without anything like this happening. But as she locked the gate to protect property, events began unfolding that left her with incredible injuries.

“It’s just so brazen and so shocking by what they did,” Hill said. “There were three of them and one of them as I got to the gate made a run for it and I tried to beat him to the car door but I wasn’t able to and I just yelled at him and banged on the window to get out the car and he pulled the car back a little bit, swung it into me, knocked me down, backed over me and then ran over me as he was driving away.”

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Hill says the car rolled over her twice. She told Channel 2′s investigative reporter Mark Winne that she tried to stand up. When she looked down, she saw her bone poking out of her left leg and she just started screaming for help.

The attack left her with a fractured skull and both collarbones, both shoulder blades, several ribs, her pelvis, two bones in each leg and her right wrist, all broken.

“I know I’ll recover. I’m very very grateful to be alive, “Hill said.

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Winne asked Hill, was there ever a time she wondered was she going to live?

“No. I think that came after when I was in the hospital because it was so brutally painful. It was like I couldn’t move any of my limbs at all without excruciating pain,” Hill said.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis says it really is a medical miracle. Willis believe there is a gang connection to the attack.

Hill says she’s not surprised.

“I think justice is extremely important. I mean they’re children. They have to be made accountable for their actions. They have to learn a different way of doing things or this kind of things is just going to continue.”

Deputy DA Chris Sperry says Lamarion Weems, a 15-year-old juvenile now charged as an adult, arrested after leading Atlanta police on a brief chase in the SUV and crashing. And 17-year-old Courtney Hall both face gang charges and more.

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Hill’s husband is a building contractor, working for himself. He says now his wife is his fulltime job.

Hill says she works as a restaurant bartender, has no medical insurance and expects hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills.

And yet she says, “I’ve been incredibly fortunate. We have this giant and growing mountain of debt but I’ve got friends who’ve set up a GoFundMe, I’ve got a meal train.”

But she says the real silver lining is that a scan for her injuries led to the discovery of an unrelated medical issue she had not known about.

“It turns out that I have a mass on my brain,” says Hill.

Hill says doctors indicated they’ll scan the very small mass in six months but didn’t seem concerned about an imminent threat.

Right now she’s focused on physical recovery from the attack but believes the mental impact will probably get worse.

A spokesman indicated two arms of the public defender system represent Hall and Weems and partly because of that he couldn’t comment publicly on case specifics.

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