PORTSMOUTH — A 67-year-old Kittery Point, Maine, woman who police say Martha Fuller Clark hit with her car Friday night, said the state senator should no longer be allowed to drive.

PORTSMOUTH — A 67-year-old Kittery Point, Maine, woman who police say Martha Fuller Clark hit with her car Friday night, said the state senator should no longer be allowed to drive.



"I just think she shouldn't drive," Carla Dow said during an interview Sunday. "I think it's negligent to drive ... when you know there's something wrong with you."



Police said Fuller Clark, 71, "blacked out," before the crash, and that there were no signs she was impaired.



Police Sgt. Rich Webb said Sunday the investigation into the accident is ongoing, but no charges have been filed.



This is the second time in fewer than two months that Fuller Clark has been involved in a crash, police said. On Sept. 8, Fuller Clark was driving eastbound on Route 33 in Portsmouth when she drove up on a median and hit a road sign, according to police.



This past Friday, at about 8:30 p.m., Dow was walking with her daughter, Laura Dow, on a sidewalk along Maplewood Avenue when Fuller Clark's car jumped the curb, struck her in the back of her legs and threw her to the ground, she said Sunday.



"I didn't know what happened. I just found myself on the sidewalk," Dow said.



She still doesn't remember the crash.



"I just remember hurting, being on the cement sidewalk and I hurt," Dow said.



Dow said she had a brief exchange with Fuller Clark, D-Portsmouth, while she was still on the ground.



"My daughter said I was hit by a car and I said 'who hit me?' and this lady (Fuller Clark) said, 'I hit you. I'm sorry, I didn't see you,'" Dow said. "After she said 'I didn't see you,' the police said 'you can't talk to each other.'"



Dow said she was surprised Fuller Clark didn't see her because she was wearing a reflective vest at the time she got hit.



"I was in the middle of the sidewalk. We weren't near the edge, we weren't near a crossing, we weren't near anywhere cars would be," Dow said. "You could understand it better if you were near the road, but to be on a sidewalk not near an intersection, it's unbelievable."



Dow spent Friday night in Portsmouth Regional Hospital, before being released Saturday morning.



She suffered two black eyes and a gash on her forehead when the impact of the crash threw her to the ground.



She didn't suffer any broken bones, but she has "a lot of bruises," and doctors said they initially thought she might have some bleeding on her brain, but a second CAT scan didn't show that.



On Sunday, her hip, which she believes she landed on, hurt more than anything, Dow said.



"I just feel beat up. I have no energy," she said Sunday.



Dow said she is surprised Fuller Clark hasn't contacted her.



"I haven't heard from her. I thought that she might call to see if I was OK," Dow said. "I haven't heard anything."



Asked if she thinks Fuller Clark should have called her, Dow said, "It would be the polite thing to do."



Her daughter spent the night in the hospital with her and her granddaughter is staying with her in her home, where she ran a day care for 30 years, Dow said.



"I took care of everybody's children," Dow said. "I have a lot of first aid training, but it seems funny to be the patient now."



Her doctors told her to call if she feels any worse during the next few days.



"He (her doctor) said you're going to feel worse before you feel better, which turned out to be true," Dow said. "For the first little while, I didn't feel that bad, I was just thankful to be alive."



Even though she lives in Kittery Point, Dow is in Portsmouth five days a week taking her granddaughter to day care.



"I push my granddaughter to school in the stroller on the sidewalk so it makes it really scary now," Dow said.



The incident has made her nervous about walking in the downtown, Dow said.



"I'll get over it, but right now I am (nervous)," she said. "I used to consider the sidewalk a safe place, but right now it will take a while (before she feels that way again)."



Dow said she doesn't want Fuller Clark to face charges, but she doesn't want her driving anymore, either.



"I think she's a danger to herself and other people," Dow said.



She is hopeful the state senator's health insurance will pay for her hospital care.



"I didn't do anything wrong," Dow said. "My insurance isn't that great. I'm on Medicare and it's not going to pay for all of it."



Laura Dow said seeing her mother hurt like that was "really, really frightening."



"It was really upsetting for me," Laura Dow said. "Because of course you don't know how badly she was hurt. Her head really swelled up."



The 32-year-old, who grew up in Kittery Point, but now lives in New Jersey, said everything happened "very fast."



Laura Dow said she saw Fuller Clark briefly and said the state senator "seemed to feel very badly" about the crash.



She agreed with her mother that Fuller Clark shouldn't drive until at the very least her health is checked out thoroughly and any medical condition she may have that caused her to black out is brought under control.



"I don't think it's safe now for her to drive," Laura Dow said. "It would be awful for the senator to hurt someone else. I think this is the best possible outcome when you look at what could have happened."



She said the first crash could have been "some freak incident, but now for the second time it seems to be developing into a pattern."



Fuller Clark did not respond to messages left on her home phone Saturday or Sunday, nor did she pick up calls made to her cell phone. A message on the phone said her voice mail was full.



No one answered her door during a visit to her Middle Street home on Sunday, where a bevy of political signs filled her front lawn.



Attempts to reach a spokesperson from the state Democratic Party were unsuccessful Sunday.