HOUSTON, Texas – A teenager was nearly killed after she was hit by a car while she was crossing the road.
Seventeen-year-old Natasha Kooken just got off the Metro bus after school on Monday around 2 p.m. It’s a routine for her, hopping off at the Hillcroft Avenue stop.
While crossing the road to her mom waiting on the other side, she was hit by a car, which never even stopped to see if she was okay.
Gage: “Tell me what you remember from Monday.”
Natasha: “I remember getting off the metro. Because my school had something called off campus, where if you get more than the needed credits, you can leave school two hours early. I was taking the Metro home as usual. When, I got off the stop, my mom was on the phone with me waiting at the other side of the road that I had to cross.”
While her mom was on the other side of the street in a parking lot, she was with her on the phone.
“I was watching vehicles. I was talking to her, so she let me know where she was along the route,” her mother, Ashley Thomas, said.
At this point, there are only two lanes of traffic separating them as Natasha stands in the large grassy median.
One car stopped, giving her a path to cross.
Nathasha: “They slowed road to a stop and gave me like a thumbs up and like waved me forward.”
Ashley: “But, I saw a vehicle turn off of the side road.”
Natasha: “I just, I remember the car like getting faster going towards me. It looks kind of blurry from that point.”
The car, described as a black four-door sedan with dark tinted windows, hit Natasha. Her mom watching the entire time.
Ashley: “She flew the air probably about ten, ten feet. She flipped about two or three times in the air before landing to the ground. And that’s why I thought my daughter was dead.”
Gage: “What was that like watching that as a mom?”
Ashley: “Terrifying. Because every inch of you, you know, you replay it.”
The driver swerved around the car that stopped to let Natasha cross the road, hitting her. That driver never stopped or even looked back.
“I don’t think I’d have any words for that person. I just have a really deep hatred of what they did,” Kooken said.
She’s now at Memorial Hermann Hospital and will be for quite some time. She has a broken femur, broken ankle, fractured hips and torn ligaments in both of her knees, along with a slew of bumps and bruises all over her body.
“I can’t even reach the bathroom on my own,” Kooken said. “I can’t move my, like, on my own and that I need to rely on other people.”
Doctors already operating on her femur, putting a titanium rod in.
However, despite all the bad she’s dealing with right now, Natasha is thankful.
“I’m really grateful that nothing happened above my waist,” she said.
Because unlike the unkind soul who left her for dead, Natasha wants to help people.
“I want to go to college for sign language interpreting. I’m really glad I can still use my arms and hands.”
Houston Police tell KPRC 2 that they are actively investigating who hit and nearly killed Natasha.
They are asking anyone who saw something or has video of the incident to submit an anonymous online tip to Crime Stoppers of Houston or call 713-222-TIPS (8477).