The Parkville teenager struck and seriously injured by a hit-and-run driver in a truck underwent his sixth surgery Tuesday.
“We?re still torn apart about this ? that someone could hit anyone and just leave the scene like that,” Nelson Thompson, 43, said of his son Michael, 18, who was mowed down April 1 at 8:46 p.m. in Parkville. “It seems there?s more and more incidents where people are hitting people and leaving the scene. I just don?t understand it. I understand that accidents happen. You just don?t hit people and
leave them on the side of the road.”
Baltimore County police have said that Michael Thompson ? who turned 18 Thursday while in a bed at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center ? might be paralyzed from the crash, but his father said Tuesday that the teen has the ability to move his arms and legs.
“He?s not going to be paralyzed,” Thompson said. “He might have long-term difficulty walking, but he does have movement in his extremities.”
Michael Thompson was crossing McClean Boulevard at a crosswalk near Perring Parkway, when he was struck by a large U-Haul truck traveling north, police said.
Witnesses told police the truckstopped for a second, then continued driving.
A woman in a different car saw the crash and positioned her vehicle in front of the teen to prevent other cars from striking him.
“There was a lady ? a good Samaritan ? she used her car to block oncoming traffic so no one else would hit him,” Nelson Thompson said. “I can only thank her.”
Crash investigators have determined the driver and others connected with the truck were in the McDonald?s on McClean Boulevard just before Thompson was hit.
The U-Haul truck had a large image of an Illinois aquatic creature called a Tully Monster, police said.
Nelson Thompson described his son as an “outgoing young man” with a “great sense of humor and a lot of friends.”
After graduating from Parkville High School, Michael Thompson planned to join the U.S. Navy.
“This puts that pretty much out of the equation,” his father said.
