NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - A beloved member of the New Orleans dog community and an employee at a local popular veterinarian office was struck by a car on Monday morning, leaving him with four broken ribs, a broken collarbone and a brain bleed.
Joe Haycock, 41, was on his way to work at Crescent City Vet in Uptown when he was hit.
“If he didn’t have his helmet on, he would not be here with us,” said his wife, Jen Suran. “It saved his life.”
Immediately after he was struck, Suran said she was told by witnesses on scene that the driver of the car, a woman, had stopped but hadn’t rendered aid and had fled.
“I got there right when the ambulance pulled up, firemen were already there. There were police officers already there, and a big crowd around him,” she said. “It’s your responsibility to help, and I just feel like whoever did this is the biggest coward. I’m worried they’ll do it to someone else.”
Surveillance video from Jefferson Avenue and Annunciation Street where the incident took place around 7:15 a.m. shows a gray or silver sedan drive into Haycock as he rides through the intersection.
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But the video does not show the license plate of the vehicle.
“Step one is trying to find who this driver is,” said attorney Charlie Thomas.
Thomas said he advocates for bikers across New Orleans, and often steps in to help when victims can’t find any help through regular channels.
“I spoke with a couple witnesses, eyewitnesses who saw the crash,” he said. “They described to me what they saw, where the car fled down Laurel Street, and we’re in the process of getting the footage of the car from some of these cameras that go down Laurel Street to see if we can get a license plate.”
According to Thomas, hit-and-runs, including those incidents in which a bicyclist is struck, have been on the rise in recent years.
“The police aren’t able to enforce the traffic rules because they’re so strapped, they’re also going to have similar bandwidth issues in going after the persons,” he said. “People should be able to bike around. We encourage people to do it safely. If you’re doing it at night, use lights and just be responsible with it.”
Crescent City Vet has posted Haycock’s GoFundMe on their social media pages.
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