Mark Anderson is bruised and sore. Underneath his leg brace, a titanium rod and some screws hold together what was, a day earlier, a gruesome assortment of broken bones.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A renderer and father to two young children, he doesn’t know when his life will return to normal.
Mr Anderson, 41, was walking home from Saturday night’s Screaming Jets show at Central Hotel when he was hit by a car on Lake Entrance Road at Oak Flats.
As he tumbled onto the road, crawling towards the gutter in a bid to avoid being hit a second time, he realised the car had vanished.
“I was doing 360s in the air … and then I just remember pushing myself off the road, because I could see another car coming,” Mr Anderson said. “I dragged myself to the gutter ... I just laid there.”
“I remember rolling over, and they were gone.”
Mr Anderson says he was on a rare night out with his wife and admits he was drunk when he stepped onto the roadway. But those circumstances should not excuse the driver’s decision not to stop, he said.
Speaking from his hospital bed on Monday, Mr Anderson called on the driver to come forward. “Have a bit of respect,” he said. “I’ve got young kids and a family. Don’t worry about me. What about my kids, who could have had no dad?”
Mr Anderson underwent surgery at Wollongong Hospital on Sunday afternoon to repair his leg, which snapped at both the tibia and fibula. He arrived at hospital with a large bump to his head and soreness to his skull, jaw and “rendering arm”.
Occupants of a subsequent car, Chris and Karen Rand, found Mr Anderson lying on the road with his feet in the gutter and his head resting on a lane marking.
“I thought someone had chucked a bag on the road,” Mr Rand said.
“If I didn’t swerve I would have gone straight over the top of him, and I was driving an SUV.
“It looked like he’d been hit, knocked up in the air and landed. His leg was snapped between the knee and ankle. You could see it bent at a 45 degree. It was just his pants holding his leg together.
“His wife was inconsolable, sitting on the floor screaming.”
Mr Anderson’s wife Alicia was a short distance away when the collision occurred. She did see him get hit, but heard it. Convinced her husband could not have survived the horrifying thump, she was paralysed with fear when the Rands found her.
Another motorist used their 4WD to shield Mr Anderson from oncoming traffic before emergency services arrived.
Police are urging anyone with information about the collision to come forward. Contact Crime Stoppers on1800 333 000.