'I thought I was going to die'

Sprawled on the side of a darkened road, bloodied and alone, Kaylesha Knight was certain of one thing: She was going to die.

She could feel shards of glass in the side of her face and pain - horrible pain everywhere.

Knight said she cried out for help a few times, but there didn't appear to be another soul on Bristol Road near Winding Brook Drive, in Bensalem, late on Nov. 1, when she was mowed down by a speeding motorist who fled the scene.

She passed out on the roadway that night, after realizing that two passers-by had arrived, seemingly out of nowhere, and called 9-1-1.

More than a month later, Knight, 25, is struggling to recover from the injuries she suffered in the accident, including a concussion, lacerated liver, and fractured leg and forearm.

The hit-and-run accident has left her out of work and confined to the basement of her mother's Logan home, a forgotten victim of a violent crime.

"I cry sometimes," Knight said during an interview last week. "I was always independent. I worked, had my own place. Now I just think that I'm a burden. It's a lot."

Shirley Knight, Kaylesha's mother, said she worries that the driver who nearly ended her daughter's life will never be brought to justice.

The accident, she noted, received no media attention. Messages she left in the weeks after the crash for local TV stations went unreturned, she said, as have her calls to the Bensalem Police Department, which is handling the investigation.

A Bensalem police spokesperson did not return several calls from the Daily News.

"It's been a rough road for us," said Shirley, 51, a soft-spoken mother of three who works at Philadelphia International Airport.

"She's still alive, which is all that matters. But I want the person that did this to her to pay for what they've done."

What the family does know for sure is this: On the night of the accident, Knight got off a SEPTA Route 14 bus at the Neshaminy Mall about 10 o'clock.

From there, Knight said, she followed the same path down Bristol Road that she took every night to her job at Delta Community Supports, Inc., a group home on Winding Brook Drive for developmentally disabled adults.

"It's a 35-minute walk. About 30 minutes into it, I was walking in the bike lane when I saw a car coming toward me," Knight said.

Instead of stopping or slowing, the car - which appeared to be white or champagne-colored - seemed to speed up as it hurtled in her direction, she said.

An instant later, she was down, covered in blood and leaves.

"I dragged myself to the corner and tried to flag down a car, yelling, 'Help! Help!' " Knight said.

"No one stopped. So I just laid there, crying. It was so cold. I thought I was just going to die."

Knight said she gave up hoping that someone would rescue her. Then a young woman appeared, and an instant later, so did a man.

She doesn't remember much of what happened next, other than "picking pieces of glass out of my face" on the way to the hospital.

A few days later, Knight's relatives visited the accident site. They traced tire marks that apparently led to the spot where the car slammed Knight.

A few feet away, they found her identification, a cell-phone case and an earring mixed among leaves and tiny pieces of glass.

What the family hasn't found yet, though, is answers to the hit-and-run mystery.

Michael Kleeman, the Knights' attorney, said he asked Bensalem police for a copy of the incident report.

Among the questions he wants answered is whether investigators have talked with the man and woman who approached Knight after she was struck.

Kleeman noted that either of them could have been behind the wheel of the car that struck Knight.

While the case drags on, Knight spends her days and nights in her mother's house, on Camac Street near Wagner Avenue, where Knight gets around with the use of a walker.

It will be months, if not longer, before she will be well enough to be able to live a normal life again.

"I can't believe that someone could hit me and keep going," Knight said, as she lowered her head and softly cried.