Manassas hit-and-run victim speaks out

MANASSAS, Va. (FOX 5 DC) - Two months after a near-death experience, a Manassas hit and run victim is speaking out - about both his miraculous recovery and the search for the person who hit him.

"All in all I'm just kind of happy that, that I'm here still," 18-year-old Ethan McLaurin said Wednesday night.

In early December McLaurin was walking along Lake Jackson Drive near Dumfries Road in Manassas when he was hit by a vehicle and thrown over a bridge, falling about 30 feet. He doesn't remember the impact but said does remember waking up disoriented and getting a call from his mom.

"I started to look around me. I was outside, I didn't know where I was, and I was just freaking out panicking, just asking for help because I did not know happened," McLaurin recalled.

Now he knows what happened but has no idea how he survived.

"It's not like the movies where you start thinking of the loved ones and you start thinking about just a bunch of things happening, like life flashbacks or anything," he said. "All I can think of was, this is probably my last moment."

McLaurin's injuries included a torn oblique, a pelvic fracture, compression fractures of the spine, and a broken fibula. He'd spend close to a month in the hospital, then came the rehab, and he still isn't allowed back at work.

"It's a scary thing to go through. It wasn't, it wasn't anything I would have ever imagined," he says now.

McLaurin said he's not mad at the driver who hit him, although he hopes they come forward for the sake of closure.

"I think people deserve a second chance because this was my second chance. Even the person who did it I think they deserve one as well," he explained, adding, "they don't have to go to prison for life or anything drastic, you know? It's just own up to what you did, pay the consequence, and then move on with your life. That's really it."