He is able to get around with the help of a walker as he tries to learn how to live with one leg. It's been a little more than a week and 31-year-old Mike Bielinski is still coming to grips with what his life will be like from now on.
"It's not easy, you know what I mean? I'm just trying to keep my head up and go forward," he said.
It's all because a driver hit him early last Sunday morning as he got out to check on car trouble on the Ontario feeder ramp.
"No witnesses after the fact stopped, nobody stopped. He just basically left me there to die in the street," Bielinski said.
Bielinski owes his life to paramedics who put a tourniquet on his leg to slow the loss of blood. Now he's determined to work as hard as he can to rehabilitate himself. He hopes to get a prosthetic leg. He also wants the driver who hit him to come forward.
"If he'd come in here and shake my hand and apologize to me an dsay, 'I don't know how It happened, it just happened. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't stop,' you know, a little bit of closure, a little bit of compassion," Bielinski said.
Bielinski worked at a pizza restaurant on the Northwest Side. He has no insurance and no idea how he'll pay his mounting medical bills. But his family has put up a $10,000 reward for anyone with information on the driver who hit him.
Tipline: 847-274-8331
Upcoming fundraiser for Bielinski Oct. 27 4 - 8 p.m. at Villa Rosa Pizza, 5345 W. Devon, Chicago
