Tulsa Man Recovering, Accruing Medical Debt After Hit-And-Run

A Tulsa man is facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills after being the victim of a hit and run crash.

John Bowen's car was hit from behind at I-244 and Garnett more than a week ago and hopes the public can help find the person who did it. 

The force of the impact from behind catapulted Bowen down an embankment and slammed him into a tree.  Parts of his vehicle still litter the ground.

He said the impact was deafening.

"It sounded like one of those industrial wrecking balls had ran into a house, that's what it sounded like and felt like too," Bowen said. 

He remembers citizens rushing to his aid and the ambulance arriving, but nothing after that until he woke up after his first surgery. He has two more surgeries in the next four days.

All that to repair his broken femur, broken fibula, broken tibia and shattered ankle. Plus, he has a fractured collar bone, fractured breast bone, three cracked ribs and a cracked T-12 vertebrae.

"I'm trying not to be angry. I'm trying to keep a sense of humor, quite frankly because it could've been so much worse," Bowen said. 

Witnesses say the driver who left the scene was driving a white box truck and after he hit Bowen, he just kept driving south on Garnett.

There are cameras on a pole right where Bowen crashed. 

ODOT owns the cameras, but when News On 6 called them and asked about them, they said those are live traffic cams, they do not record footage.

Bowen's focus right now is healing and hoping the driver gets caught so he can't hurt anyone else.

"I'm not going to walk for at least six weeks," Bowen said. 

If anyone witnessed the accident or have seen a white box truck with front end damage, report it to the Tulsa Police Department.