Witnesses describe ‘horrible’ scene as dirt bike leaves after hitting UAlbany student
Elizabeth Louis is Alexa Kropf’s roommate and best friend.
“When he came out of the blue, it shocked me,” she said. “And then I saw her get hit and she, it was horrible. It was horrible to see.”
Friday night, April 26, the two were with Hunter Gonyo on Hudson Avenue in Albany. It’s an area where a lot of students live.
“We went to the corner store, Pine Hills, and then we came back,” said Louis. “And we were just crossing the street and this bike literally came out of nowhere and just swerved out of the way of Hunter and collided with Alexa.”
“We went to Pine Hills, the corner store at the end of the street, and we were just getting drinks,” said Hunter Gonyo. “We came back and as I was crossing the street with her, I was getting towards the end of the street and next thing I know, there’s a motorcycle coming straight at us. It swerved out of the way last second and hit her.”
“She got hit, and then I ran up to her and held her in my arms, and she started seizing,” said Louis. “The guy fell off his bike and I yelled at him. I was like, ‘You can’t leave, you can’t leave her here!’ And he just looked at me, flipped me off, and he just kept going.”
“I ran up to her to check on her, to see what state she was in and the next thing I know the guy fell off his bike, he got up, turned around, gave us the middle finger and then left,” said Gonyo. “We told him to stop, you can’t leave, and he had no regard for that and just left.”
Louis thinks he was wearing something like a ski mask.
So far, no arrests have been made.
“Somebody actually tried picking her up, and I had to stop them from picking her up. Fireworks started going off as soon as it happened too, really bad timing,” Gonyo said.
Kropf is still in critical condition at Albany Medical Center, making slow progress.
“She has a very bubbly personality, just like a very sweet girl, you wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to her, it was just really unfortunate what happened,” Gonyo said.
“She has the biggest heart in the world. She’s the best person. She cares about people very deeply and has a great sense of humor,” said Louis. “And her not being here is really hard because she was my person for everything.”
A GoFundMe has raised more than $90,000.
The friends only have a few words for that hit-and-run biker.
“Give yourself up,” said Hunter. “Doing what you did is not right and leaving the way you did, seeing what you did and flipping us off and just leaving, that’s not the right thing to do. If you have any morals or sense of humanity, you should turn yourself in.”
“You took my best friend away from me,” said Louis. “My best friend, my rock, my person, you took her away from me, and you just left. I don’t know what I would say to him. I just know what you did wasn’t right.”
MORE: GoFundMe for Alexa Kropf