Abbotsford pedestrian struck by car in Aldergrove thanks her rescuers

Bettany Plummer will miss Halloween with her family, but she has been told she should be home from hospital in time for Christmas. The Abbotsford resident was walking home with groceries from the FreshCo in Aldergrove on Fraser Highway near Station Road at about 9:45 a.m. Friday, Oct. 3, when a vehicle struck her and dragged her beneath its wheels.

Plummer told the Langley Advance Times she was in the pedestrian crosswalk and it was her turn to cross. A dark SUV was turning to go left. She said she made direct eye contact with the driver and told her to stop. Plummer believes her bag caught around the vehicle’s mirror before she was pulled under a tire. The vehicle continued driving, she said. She was dragged about 40 feet before the driver stopped.

She remembers people rushing to help, including an off-duty firefighter and his wife, a nurse, who reassured her she would be OK. Plummer said she does not believe she would be alive if they had not got out of their vehicles to help. They encouraged her to keep breathing and stay calm, and quickly got her husband on the phone. She said she was fortunate not to have a brain injury.

Plummer is now at Royal Columbian Hospital and expects a recovery of “three to six weeks.” She said she has a broken collarbone, a broken left foot, multiple broken ribs, torn ligaments in her left knee and road rash over 60 per cent of her body. Her pelvis was shattered and required repair surgery. Two or three days later, she had back surgery from her tailbone to the middle of her back. She also has four broken bones in her jaw and 14 broken spots in her face in total.

This will be her first Halloween away from her family. Plummer said she has asked for daily updates about her garden because she accidentally grew a successful pumpkin patch this year. Pumpkins grew over the summer, and she got about 35 of them, leaving them in the front yard for Halloween.

On Oct. 12, Plummer posted a thank-you message on social media. “From the bottom of my heart, I wanna say thank you to everybody in Aldergrove who stepped in to help,” she wrote. She said their quick actions had kept her there to be with her family and that she would be forever thankful to everyone. She also apologized to anyone who had to witness the incident.

Langley RCMP are asking anyone with information that could assist the investigation, including dashcam video, to call 604-532-3200.