A 20-year-old skateboarder remains hospitalized with 14 separate injuries after a driver struck him and fled the scene in South Lake Union early Wednesday, August 12, leaving him unconscious in the roadway near Harrison Street and 8th Avenue. Jordan Brito was on his way to work at the time, and he has not regained the ability to open his eyes or reliably recall what happened to him since the crash.
According to the Seattle Police Department blotter, the crash happened at approximately 5:27 a.m. in the 800 block of Harrison Street. Witnesses told police the suspect vehicle, a red newer-model Acura sedan, was heading westbound on Harrison before fleeing northbound on 8th Avenue. A bystander called 911, and Brito was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where he was rushed in on a code 3 transport, according to KING 5 News. As of Tuesday, Seattle police had announced no arrests in the case, according to KIRO 7 News Seattle.
A Body Broken in 14 Places
Hospital records cited by the same KING 5 report detail the scope of Brito's trauma: brain bleeding and bruising, skull fractures, facial fractures involving both eye sockets, his nose and his jaw, a fractured left wrist, and damage to an artery that supplies blood to his brain. Per KIRO 7, his treatment will include reconstruction of his entire face, and his facial damage requires surgery. He was crossing Harrison Street mid-block when the Acura struck him and knocked him unconscious in the road, per the same outlet's reporting.
Kelly McDonald, Brito's mother, has stayed by her son's side at Harborview Medical Center since the crash. She told KIRO 7 that her son looks like somebody ran him over and left him to die. Brito is weeks away from his 21st birthday, and McDonald said the hit-and-run took away the plans he had built for his life — six-month, one-year, five-year and ten-year goals he had set for himself.
A Life Built Around Teaching Kids
Brito has spent his life dedicated to teaching children taekwondo, according to KIRO 7's report on his family and community ties. McDonald said her son had to choose between paying for health insurance or covering food and bills — and he does not currently have health insurance, a gap that is now compounding the family's crisis as medical bills mount.
Jordan Brito's sisters set up a GoFundMe campaign to help cover his rising medical expenses. According to the fundraiser, organized by his sister Karena Paek and launched the day of the crash, the effort is meant to help the family manage emergency surgery and recovery costs as they come in.
Legal Stakes for the Driver, If Found
Under Washington law, RCW 46.52.020, fleeing the scene of a crash that causes personal injury is a Class C felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, a $10,000 fine, and a mandatory one-year driver's license revocation, according to Ashbach Law Offices. State law requires drivers to stop and render aid regardless of who caused a crash. Because Brito was on a skateboard, he was legally a pedestrian under Washington traffic law, per RCW 46.04.400 — a classification the state uses because skateboards, like other human-powered conveyances aside from bicycles, fall under pedestrian protections, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation.
Because Brito lacks adequate insurance, he may also be eligible for help through the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries' Crime Victims Compensation Program, which can provide up to $150,000 in medical coverage and up to $15,000 in temporary wage-loss benefits for victims of violent hit-and-run crashes, according to the agency. The program is designed to act as a payer of last resort for people hurt in crimes committed in Washington.
McDonald Wants More Cameras on Seattle Streets
McDonald told KIRO 7 she supports expanded surveillance measures and would like to see more cameras installed around the city. She has urged the driver responsible to come forward, and the Seattle Police Department is asking anyone with information, including witnesses or people with crash camera footage, to contact investigators. The department's Traffic Collision Investigation Squad is handling the case.
A Corridor Under Redesign, a City Behind on Vision Zero
Harrison Street was designated by city transportation planners as a primary multi-modal east-west corridor connecting South Lake Union to Uptown following SR-99 tunnel construction, part of an effort to reroute transit and improve pedestrian and bike infrastructure along the restored street grid, according to The Urbanist. Even so, the corridor sits within a citywide safety picture that has stalled: 27 people died and 219 were seriously injured on Seattle streets in 2025, including 18 pedestrian fatalities, per the same outlet's reporting on the Seattle City Council's scheduled audit of the city transportation department's safety programs.
Separate tracking data from Seattle's transportation department, covering 2018 through 2022, found that pedestrians and micro-mobility users accounted for 38% of all fatal and serious-injury collisions citywide, despite making up roughly a quarter of total trips, according to ThatCarHitMe.com. Research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, cited by Oregon Public Broadcasting, helps explain why: a pedestrian struck by a car traveling 20 mph has a 90% survival rate, but that drops to 50% once impact speed reaches 40 mph — a finding that has underpinned Seattle's push to lower speed limits to 20 to 25 mph on arterial streets.
KIRO 7 also reported that Harborview Medical Center treated 252 patients for e-bike and e-scooter injuries last year, resulting in six deaths, up from 29 such patients and zero deaths in 2020. For now, Brito remains hospitalized while his family waits for answers about the driver who left him in the road, and for the surgeries that lie ahead as he tries to reclaim the plans the crash interrupted.
