COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – An Ohio woman is fighting broken bones and brain injuries after she was hit by a car after attending Buckeye Country Superfest last Saturday.
Abbie McIlyar, 40, was walking across Kenny Road with a group of friends early Sunday morning when a vehicle made a right turn onto Kenny Road and hit McIlyar before driving off, her friends said.
Julie Olinger is one of McIlyar’s longtime friends. She was not there that night, but visited McIlyar in the hospital the next day.
“She had a fractured hip, her ribs, and she has fractures in her face and her skull,” Olinger said. “I, her brain injury was the biggest concern for the doctors. She’s doing better than expected. So, I went to visit her the next day. It was so heartbreaking seeing her. She seemed so small laying there in the bed, and she had all these pillows propped up around her, and she was tied down and at that time, she was in a neck brace and a ventilator, and she could open her eyes and look at me just a little bit.”
Olinger and McIlyar have known each other for decades.
“She finds a friend everywhere that she goes,” Olinger said. “She’s not afraid to talk to a stranger. She will open up to anybody. She will take in anybody. She is truly just one of those people. She’s very feisty. She is definitely a firecracker and she’s a fighter and that, I think, is really going to come in handy in this situation. She is fighting right now and we are all behind her.”
They work together every year on the Licking County Mom Prom, which raises money for a charity in the community that may not be getting enough support. Olinger said she already has different plans for this October’s prom.
“This October, Mom Prom is going to give back to Abby because she puts so much into everybody else,” she said. “She’s there for everybody else. It’s really, truly her heart to give back to our community.”
The person usually helping others is now the one in need of help, and friends and family have stepped up for McIlyar in the last week. A GoFundMe page to raise money for her medical bills and recovery efforts has already raised more than $40,000.
Olinger said she knows Abbie is a fighter and is already showing signs of improvement in the last few days.
“She’s out of the neck brace, she’s off of the ventilator,” Olinger said. “I’m told that she can do just very short little sentences and, she’s moving more, but she’s still, like I said, she has multiple surgeries ahead of her.”
As McIlyar lies in the hospital, police are still looking for the person responsible. The only lead was a blurry doorbell camera photo of what looks like a newer version Hyundai SUV.
“A newer model of a Hyundai Santa Fe, it’s a silver Hyundai Santa Fe, and they were speeding away at a very high rate of speed, and so the only picture that we have is a very blurry picture,” Olinger said. “We’re hoping that there’s enough businesses in that area. There’s enough houses in that area that somebody had a camera that could capture that vehicle speeding away.”
Olinger had this message for the person responsible, who she said hit McIlyar once before hitting her again as they sped away.
“I know you’re probably scared, and I know that your future seems uncertain,” Olinger said. “You don’t know what kind of trouble you’re going to be in. But I promise you, what Abby is going through is so much worse. Please turn yourself in, do the right thing. The guilt is going to eat you up. You will think about this every day and every night, and until you confess and come forward and face what’s coming to you, you will never have peace and you will never be settled.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact Columbus Police at 614-645-4545.
