‘It broke my heart,’ friend says of injuries suffered by Blaine man hit by SUV on I-5
A Blaine man who was critically injured early Saturday when he was hit by another vehicle on Interstate 5 near the Alger exit continues to recover from his injuries, and a friend has set up an online crowdfunding account to help him pay his bills and expenses.
Peter I. Kovtun, 26, was transported to Harborview Medical Center after he lost control of the white 2014 BMW 428 he was driving at 2:05 a.m. Dec. 7 southbound on I-5 near milepost 241, stuck a barrier on the right side of the highway and came to rest in the right lane, according to the Washington State Patrol news release on the crash.
Kovtun exited and was standing alongside the BMW when he was struck by a black 2018 Toyota Highlander driven by Fu D. Ren, 61, of Vancouver, B.C., the report said. Ren was not cited in the incident because Kovtun was in the lane of travel at the time he was hit, Trooper Heather Axtman told The Bellingham Herald.
“Yesterday I went to visit him at the Harborview Hospital down south and realized (how) much damage was done to his body,” Kovtun’s friend, Alex Savchuk told The Bellingham Herald. “It broke my heart just to see how much pain he is going through.”
An MRI revealed Kovtun had eight broken ribs, a broken pelvis, two broken bones in his leg, two fractured vertebrae in his neck and countless cuts, scrapes and bruises, Savchuk said in a gofundme.com account he created to help his friend.
“Peter has a long road to recovery, so we would like to raise a bit of money to help him with the financial part of things,” Savchuk wrote on the gofundme page. “I know it won’t fix the situation that our friend is in, but it will definitely help.”
In its first day, the account has raised more than $5,200 toward its published goal of $15,000.
This story was originally published December 10, 2019 at 11:15 AM.
