Suspected drunk driver charged after woman hit near U of T
Posted March 15, 2018 5:38 am.
Last Updated March 15, 2018 5:33 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A suspected drunk driver has been charged after a 21-year-old woman was struck by a vehicle in downtown Toronto.
Police say the woman was hit while crossing the street at a marked crosswalk in the Huron and College streets area around 2:30 a.m. Thursday. The driver was going the wrong way on Huron at the time.
The driver has been identified as 19-year-old Rylan Balappa-Lawes of Missassauga.
“She was thrown some fair distance, in behind some construction cladding and beside a dumpster. She is just lucky somebody saw her get hit and was able to search for her,” Const. Clint Stibbe told 680 NEWS.
“[The driver] left her for dead. And the reality is, had somebody not seen her get hit, she would have been.”
She was rushed to hospital, where she remains with life-threatening injuries.
The driver fled the scene, but police located the SUV in the Spadina Road and Eglinton Avenue area in Forest Hill.
Balappa-Lawes is facing five charges including criminal negligence causing bodily harm, fail to stop after accident causing bodily harm, impaired operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm, over 80 milligrams operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm.
He will appear in court on March 15.
