BERLIN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WXYZ) — A 26-year-old woman in Monroe County is still in intensive care more than a week after being hit by a car. Her heartbroken family is thankful she’s still alive, while also demanding answers.
Twenty-six-year-old Somer Nicholson was walking along Newport Road near Canterbury Lane in Berlin Township early in the morning on Jan, 22, when she was hit by an unknown driver who kept going.
“I love her and I'm glad she’s still here with me," Nicholson's mother Debra Cullen said. "It’s a miracle.”
Cullen is celebrating that miracle while also still living through the nightmare of what happened. In eight days, her daughter has undergone seven surgeries, suffering multiple broken bones, damaged organs and frostbitten skin after being hit by a car and left for dead.
“It's a long road," Cullen said of her daughter's recovery. "It's just sad someone is out there getting away with hurting her."
Nicholson was walking along the road heading to a nearby Burger King. A few hours after she didn't show up, Cullen got a call that Nicholson was missing and went looking. She drove around the area scanning the road until she finally found her daughter deep in an icy ditch alone, freezing cold and severely hurt.
"I was really scared. I was shocked, I didn't know what to do, I just ran down there,” Cullen said. "I'm just glad I was able to find her still breathing, barely hanging on. She was losing consciousness when I was down there and I kept talking to her like 'You're not going to die, honey.' She kept saying she was going to die and I said 'No, you're not. Not on my clock.'”
Cullen soon learned her daughter was hit by a car that took off. With Nicholson on a ventilator in critical condition, the search for the driver was on.
“Accidents happen, but to keep going? That's another thing,” Cullen said.
"She is so beautiful. She's so spirited. And for someone to just hit her and leave her there to die like Debbie said, like roadkill? It's extremely messed up," Nicholson's friend Romy Kelley said. "We just want justice.”
More than a week later, investigators are still searching for answers but, Nicholson is slowly recovering. She's now off the ventilator, alert and awake.
"It was a miracle," Cullen said of her daughter getting off the ventilator. "I cried of joy.”
As Cullen celebrates that miracle, she’s still holding out hope that the person responsible, or anyone who knows them, might come forward.
"Consciously, come forward. It was wrong for you," Cullen said. "Accidents do happen. It was wrong that you left my baby in a ditch to die like an animal.”
The Monroe County Sheriff's Office is still investigating. If you have any information on the driver, contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP. The family also has a GoFundMe page.
