Bike Courier Injured In Alleged Hit-Run

PHILADELPHIA - A Philadelphia bicycle messenger who says she is the victim of a hit-and-run driver is speaking out.

30-year-old Rachel Fletcher has been a bike courier for the past nine years. But on Thanksgiving Day at about 2:30 a.m., on the corner of 23rd and Locust Streets, her ride was cut short after she says a car forced her to crash.

"I heard him coming up really close to the side of me and I heard him scream 'Get out of the road!' and then he just got so close to me that I was just forced onto the sidewalk and I went over my handlebars and I landed on my face," recounts Fletcher.

She suffered serious facial injuries and spent three days at Hahnemann University Hospital after surgery.

"I had a broken nose, broken right cheek bone, broken right upper jaw, a concussion. And also a small fracture in one of my neck vertebra," says Fletcher.

She has since filed a police report, but says police are treating her crash as an accident - not a hit-and-run.

Tension has been building between some bikers and the city as Council considers new regulations on cyclists, reported Fox 29's Thomas Drayton.