Since Friday, Kolby Bercier is keeping his eye out for grey trucks.
The 22-year-old was longboarding to work Friday along Sophia Street in Selkirk. As he approached the intersection at Pacific Avenue, so did a grey pickup truck.
“It’s a four-way stop, so I figured they would stop. So I continued on. But they didn’t,” Bercier said. “They made their way through the majority of the intersection trying to do a U-turn, and then they hit me.”
Bercier was struck in the right knee and flew a few feet onto the sidewalk. The truck stopped momentarily; Bercier looked up at the driver before it left the scene.
“I didn’t remember hitting the ground, but I remember watching them drive away.”
A witness called 9-1-1 and Bercier was taken to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.
“I woke up the next day and I thought it was just going to be my knee that hurt because that’s what I thought was hurt,” he said. “But my arms and my neck and everything else seemed to hurt.”
He’s recovering from a torn meniscus and bruising on his right side. He’s off work for the time being and is waiting to start physiotherapy for his knee.
Selkirk RCMP released Wednesday they’re looking to identify the Ford F-150 and its four teenage occupants. In an email to Global News, Manitoba RCMP Sgt. Paul Manaigre said officers are following up on a current lead.
Data from Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) shows there have been a total of 9,426 hit-and-run collisions in the province so far in 2024. While most result in physical damage to vehicles only, 115 have resulted in injuries. There have been three fatal hit-and-runs this year in Manitoba, and 11 since 2020.
That seems high to Bercier.
“I don’t know the numbers on pedestrian hit and runs, but I’m one of them now,” he said.
Despite his injuries, Bercier says he holds no ill will towards the people in the vehicle.
“They looked like teenagers in the car, you know?” he said. “So I know that they were just as scared as I was after I got hit. So I’m not mad at them or anything. I just would prefer that maybe they came forward.”
Selkirk RCMP ask anyone with information to contact the detachment or Crime Stoppers.