A woman who smashed into and ran over a motorcyclist in Fort Wayne, Indiana, told police that she had let God drive her car when she ran down 47-year-old Anthony Oliveri, leaving him with serious injuries — but “ecstatic to be alive.”
Prionda Hill, 25, also rammed the back of a Ford pickup truck before running her 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix off the road onto a median next to a Rally’s burger restaurant, according to a police report.
The bizarre accident took place around 9:45 pm on July 11. Hill appeared in court last Thursday where she was charged with failing to stop after an accident, criminal recklessness and two counts of criminal mischief.
According to police, when they found Hill at the Rally’s fast food joint, she told them that she was driving along normally on Jefferson Boulevard near Jackson Street in Fort Wayne, when “out of nowhere God told her that He would take it from here and she let go of the wheel and let Him take it.”
As soon as she let go of the steering wheel, her Pontiac slammed into the back of a 2001 Harley-Davidson motorcycle ridden by Oliveri, a lifelong motorcycling enthusiast who once built a Kawasaki motorcycle from scratch in his mom’s garage.
Though Oliveri was traveling, he says, no more than 20 mph at the time, the impact almost knocked his riding boots off his feet and sent him sprawling helplessly on the pavement.
But Hill, or God, or whoever was operating the vehicle wasn’t done with him yet. When the stricken Oliveri looked up, he saw the Pontiac bearing down on him.
“As I grabbed the handle bars as the bike was losing control and I looked back around my left shoulder, all I see is her tire and the left bumper getting ready to run my face over,” he told WANE-TV . “Literally I was inches from that bumper and I just said to myself today is the day I die.”
But fortunately, the car did not crush his head, rolling over his midsection instead, leaving Oliveri with several broken ribs, a lacerated spleen and bleeding kidney. He also suffered severe scrapes to his skin.
Hill tested negative for alcohol, but police did not run a full toxicology test. The woman who let God take the wheel told the cops that she had a prescription for the pain medication Vicodin.
She also said that there was nothing mechanically wrong with her car and that she tried to stop before slamming into Oliveri.
The driver of the Ford pickup was not injured by the car after Hill allowed God to drive her Pontiac. See the WANE report on the near-fatal accident, below.