Police looking for hit-and-run driver who injured bicyclist near Olympia

THURSTON COUNTY, Wash. -- Police need your help to find a hit-and-run driver who struck a bicyclist near Olympia last month.

It happened along Johnson Point Road at about 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 17. The cyclist doesn’t even remember the impact that left him unconscious in the ditch, before a stranger found him about 20 minutes later.

“You just can’t leave somebody hit, hurt on the side of the road,” victim Lee Smith said Monday. “You just can’t do that.”

Smith, 57, was bruised and battered, with broken bones from his legs to his nose.



Smith doesn’t know how the driver who hit him could have missed his flashing safety lights.

“Two on the back of the bike flashing, three lights on the front flashing, plus I wear a reflective bike jacket,” he said.

Smith lay unconscious for nearly a half-hour in a roadside ditch before a stranger stopped and called 911.

“I remember hearing a loud sound and the next thing I remember a fellow was standing above me and says, there is somebody inside that bicycle jacket.”

He spent five days in the hospital but is now recovering at home where he’ll likely be for the next several weeks.

Police believe the car that hit Smith is a 2014-2015 red Kia Optima, which should have significant damage to its passenger side. It’s also missing a rear-view mirror.

Smith said he’s not angry with the driver, but he is upset that he or she didn’t call 911.

“I hope that this person that did this turns themselves in and goes to the sheriff’s department and says, hey, I made a mistake,” said Smith.

If you have any information in this case, call the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office.