Mother pleads for driver to come forward after son is left in coma in hit-and-run on Christmas day

Plea: Sharon Bixby is urging the driver to go to the police after her son was left in a coma
Facebook/Sharon Bixby
Laura Proto4 January 2016
WEST END FINAL

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The mother of a man left in a coma after a hit-and-run on Christmas Day has issued an emotional plea for the driver to come forward.

JJ Armstrong, 24, was walking in Seven Sisters Road at about 7pm on December 25 when he was hit by a car and left for dead.

He suffered critical injuries and endured eight hours of surgery to bleeding around his head and neck and remains partially in a coma 10 days after the horrific incident.

His mother Sharon Bixby, 55, today urged the driver to give himself up, saying: “My son won’t be more than a baby when he comes out.”

Mother-of-five Miss Bixby said her family were settling down for the night when the police contacted her to say her son had been involved in an accident near the junction with Amhurst Park.

She was taken by police car to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel as her son was rushed for an emergency operation.

Miss Bixby said: “I saw a specialist who said he had two bleeds on his head on the side of his skull. They said we might need to prepare for the worst.

“We didn’t hear anything, they kept saying he was in theatre and there was no news. I didn’t really care as long as he came out the other side.”

Mr Armstrong came out of surgery in the early hours on December 26. His mother said it was “absolutely devastating” to see the nature of his injuries before he was rushed back for further surgery.

She added: “He will never be the same JJ that people knew. The doctors can’t predict [his recovery]. They can only tell me what is going on day to day. I can’t even tell you how many times I was told ‘prepare to lose him”.”

Victim: JJ Armstrong, 24, endured eight hours of surgery after the hit-and-run and remains in a coma Facebook/Sharon Bixby

Miss Bixby praised the staff at the Royal London Hospital and the London Air Ambulance medics who treated her son at the roadside and is now urging the driver of the vehicle to come forward.

She said: “The damage [the driver] has done to my son is unbelievable. [They] have done a very, very bad thing.

“My son will never be the same. He is going through so much trauma since the accident and he is still in a coma.

“If [the driver] has a heart, give himself up because it will eat himself up. He has to give himself up for himself, let alone my son and my family.

“I understand he is scared but he needs to give up because you can’t go around knocking people over and making them on their death bed.”

Appealing to witnesses, Miss Bixby added: “People must have been coming home from going to relatives or going out to relatives. Someone must have seen something, even walking down to Tottenham way. There has to be something.”

Any witnesses or anyone with information should call the Serious Collision Investigation Unit on 020 8597 4874 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

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