Runner is struck by car along Rose Parade route

A woman was struck by a vehicle while running along the Rose Parade route early Friday morning.

The runner was westbound on Colorado Boulevard near Sierra Madre Boulevard about 5:30 a.m., near people camped out on the sidewalk waiting for the parade. The stretch of Colorado is closed to traffic.

A dark-colored car struck the woman and kept driving, said Perla Vega, 24, of Lawndale, who was sitting in a lawn chair next to where the woman was hit.

Vega said she was encouraging the group with whom the woman was running when the car came out of nowhere, seemingly coming straight for the campers.

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“She was running, and a car just scooped her up,” Vega said. “I was sitting with my aunt, and the car looked like it was coming toward us.”

Vega said the woman hit the car’s hood, and the car swerved and kept driving down Colorado.

As a paramedic moved her, she repeated, “Ow, ow, ow, ow.”

Liam Kennedy, 52, of Monrovia, said the woman was part of a group called Godfather Sean’s Rose Parade Run, which has run the parade route annually for 14 years.

He was running with the woman but stopped to talk to some kids along the route — then he saw police cars ahead and his friend on the street. He said the group consists of seasoned runners who keep each other abreast of cars’ locations.

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy on the scene said the driver had been stopped by authorities farther along the road.

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