HALIFAX — A Halifax cyclist says she’s thankful to be alive after a hit and run, but is urging the driver responsible to come forward and “own your mistakes.”

Jodie Fitzgerald, 30, said she was riding her bicycle south on Devonshire Ave. in Halifax’s North End on Saturday just before 1 p.m. en route to her parent’s house.

There’s plenty of visibility in the area, Fitzgerald said, and she noticed at the time that there were hardly any other cars around. Fitzgerald was in a bike lane and was slowing down to get ready to turn left onto Richmond St. when she was hit, she said.

“Suddenly I just felt like ‘bam’ — big, loud sound, the biggest pain in my tailbone I’ve ever felt,” Fitzgerald said in an interview Sunday.

She remembers losing her balance and spilling onto the pavement off her bike, then picking herself up in time to see a white, “silvery” car drive by with at least two little kids looking at her out the car window “in shock.”

Fitzgerald yelled after the car, but it continued driving out of sight. She then realized she should get out of the road, and walked over to a grassy patch where she fell on her back.

Although she took out her phone to call for help, Fitzgerald said by then another woman had seen the collision, pulled over her car, and ran over. The woman told Fitzgerald she was actually a first responder and there to help, and began asking about her age and name. At this time, a crowd had gathered and the woman instructed another bystander to call 911.

Fitzgerald said someone also called her parents, who live just around the corner, and they also quickly arrived.

“I remember feeling really scared,” Fitzgerald said, especially since as a nursing student at Dalhousie University she had learned about spinal cord injuries and was at first worried she may never walk again.

Halifax police, firefighters and paramedics all arrived within 10 minutes, Fitzgerald estimates, and they checked her over before she was helped into a stretcher and then loaded into the ambulance.

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There was “intense” pain in her tailbone, Fitzgerald said, but after being X-rayed and assessed at the hospital it turned out everything was intact. A doctor told her she’ll be sore for the next week, but she was able to walk out of the hospital just three hours after the incident around 4 p.m.

“I’m just really grateful that I’m alive and not like paralyzed and that so many people came to my aid,” Fitzgerald said.

“And I’m really angry, and I think this guy has no business driving.”

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Fitzgerald said she believes it was a man who struck her with the white car, which other bystanders told her was a BMW, but didn’t get a “good look” at the person behind the wheel as it happened so fast.

If the driver had simply stopped and waited to make sure she was OK, that would have been so much better, she said. Also, Fitzgerald questioned what kind of example the driver has now set for their children who witnessed the incident.

“You just hit this girl and you like let her stand up and like collapse on the side of the road, like what are you teaching your children?” she said.

“Own your mistakes.”

Staff Sgt. David Boon confirmed that Halifax Regional Police responded to a collision between a cyclist and car in the 3000 block of Devonshire Ave. on Saturday where the driver of a BMW failed to remain at the scene.

Boon said witnesses reported the cyclist had signalled her intention to turn left across the street onto Richmond heading east, and crossed into the path of the BMW.

The incident is under investigation, Boon said.

Fitzgerald said she hopes the person involved is much more aware of cyclists and pedestrians from now on.

“You’re lucky I’m alive and well, but you could have killed somebody. If the angle was different I would have been T-boned and I would have flipped right over the hood of the car,” she said.

Although Fitzgerald didn’t catch the woman’s name who first rushed to her side, she wanted to thank her for being such a wonderful advocate with first responders and the crowd, and making her feel safe in a scary situation.

Fitzgerald’s incident is the latest in a recent string of Halifax collisions where cyclists have been sent to hospital after being struck by drivers.

A few weeks ago, two other Halifax-area cyclists were hit on July 24: one on John Bracket Dr. in Herring Cove and one in Waverly. Drivers in both collisions, a 24-year-old man and 46-year-old man respectively, were ticketed under the Motor Vehicle Act for failing to leave one metre of open space between a vehicle and a cyclist when passing.

On July 29, RCMP responded to a collision involving a cyclist struck by a driver on Highway 2 in Waverly. The cyclist sustained minor injuries, and the driver, a 33-year-old woman from Waverly, was charged with failing to yield to the cyclist.

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