ATLANTA — The Atlanta Police Department is investigating a hit-and-run involving an e-scooter rider in midtown.
Police say Amber Ford, 34, was riding an e-scooter Saturday night on 14th Street near Crescent Avenue when she was struck by a car shortly before 10 p.m. The car then left the scene.
Ford, a nurse and mother of two young children, was in town with her husband from Alabama for a date night. They took an Uber to dinner but decided to try out the e-scooters on their way back to the hotel.
"We had kind of been cussed out for riding on the sidewalks. We're not locals. We don't know the rules. So we heard we were supposed to be on the street so, on the way back, we got in the streets," Justin Ford told Channel 2's Lauren Pozen.
Just as they got to their hotel, a car hit Amber Ford.
“I heard her scream and I did see the car fly by her and just seen her laying in the middle of the pavement,” he said. “I didn’t hear tires screech or all that. That car was flying. They never let up.”
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Amber Ford was rushed to Grady Hospital with critical injuries. She initially showed signs of recovery on Monday.
“The first few days were looking positive,” he said. “She ate that morning and was talking to us, called us by name, not talking a whole lot you could tell she was in a lot of pain.”
But things took a turn quickly and her brain stopped functioning. She is now on life support and not expected to survive. Her husband said he is planning to donate her organs to help save other lives.
“She had a potential to save 8 lives. She’s a nurse. I know she is all about saving people and helping people,” he said.
Amber Ford will leave behind a 2-year-old daughter and a 9-month-old son.
“My son is not going to know. He’s only 9 months (old). My daughter is going to be the toughest one. She loves her mom. She is crazy about her mom,” Justin Ford said.
He now has a warning for anyone thinking of riding the e-scooters.
“I wish we would have known how dangerous these things were. To me, it shouldn't be a tourist thing. Maybe regulate them to helmets and just use them to commute,” he said.
The police report gives no description of the car involved. Justin Ford said it was a dark-colored sedan.
Investigators are trying to find video from cameras in the very busy area. There are a number of hotels on the same block, a bank across the street, a Subway, a Starbucks and cameras at intersections at Crescent Avenue and West Peachtree Street.
The crash comes a week after activists took to the streets in support of safer measures for e-scooter riders.
There have been two other e-scooter deaths in the city of Atlanta. A man died when he was hit by a transit bus at the intersection of 15th and West Peachtree streets in July. Another man died while he was leaving the parking lot of the West Lake MARTA Station, when he was struck by a Cadillac SUV in May.