Woman injured in West Pullman hit-and-run crash

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Officials continue to search for a driver involved in a hit-and-run that injured a woman Thursday morning.

The hit-and-run happened around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday at the corner of 117th Place and Lowe in the West Pullman neighborhood. Ashli Williams, 20, was in a car with her boyfriend traveling southbound when a woman driving a red Pontiac ran a stop sign and slammed into her.

Right before the impact, Williams says she caught a glimpse of the female hit and run driver with her head down, apparently texting. The next thing Williams knew, she was airborne.

The impact sent her SUV flying, rolling over twice.

"It sounded like a bomb. The witnesses said it sounded like a house explosion, like a small house explosion," she said.

Williams has a gash on her forehead, which needed stitches, and other cuts and bruises but she is relieved that's the extent of it.

"I thought it was over, like in my head I was just thinking this is the end," she said.

Williams was the passenger in her car; her boyfriend was behind the wheel. She said the woman who hit them blew a stop sign and hit the back of their Buick at a 90-degree angle.

"I just heard a big boom. I closed my eyes, and I just felt myself being thrown out. When I opened my eyes I was in the back seat and I couldn't get out," Williams said.

Her boyfriend was unhurt and pulled her to safety. The driver of the Pontiac was nowhere to be found.

"At least have the decency to go to the police station and say, 'Hey. I did this. I'm sorry.' Because to me that's just heartless," said Joyce Harrison, Williams' mother.

"She didn't know if we're alive or not, like she basically left us for dead," Williams said.

The totaled SUV belongs to Williams' mother, who works two jobs. One of them is to drive foster children in that vehicle to visitations with their parents, so this crash has affected more than one family.