A metro Atlanta chemistry professor is recovering in a Maryland hospital after he was hit by a truck while traveling for the holidays.
Thomas Gluick, an assistant professor of chemistry at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville, made a stop at a Baltimore-area mall after visiting family in New York for Christmas. He was on his way home to Georgia when he was hit on New Year's Eve, according to a friend.
Police in Baltimore County, Maryland, said the driver who hit Gluick left the scene. The professor was struck while crossing a busy street, and investigators are hoping witnesses will come forward.
"It's a very busy intersection that leads into downtown Towson so we are certain that somebody had to see something on New Year's Eve," Baltimore County police Cpl. Shawn Vinson told Baltimore news station WMAR-TV.
They are still hoping to locate the suspect’s vehicle, which was described as a dark pickup truck with a tool box or bed cover.
Gluick's former wife and friend, Sheila Garrity, said good Samaritans stayed with the man until help could arrive. She has started a GoFundMe page to raise money for his medical bills and other recovery costs.
“Tom had his first of many surgeries Dec. 31,” she said in the campaign. “He was left with multiple facial fractures, eight broken ribs, and a broken arm and leg.”
Gluick lived in Baltimore for many years while working as a research scientist at Johns Hopkins University, WMAR reported. He is now being treated at the Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland.
Gluick was taken off a ventilator Monday and is “slowly beginning to understand the gravity of his injuries,” Garrity said. More surgeries are likely as doctors discover other injuries.
His doctors have not said when Gluick might be released from the hospital.
“When will Tom be able to go back to Georgia and start teaching college again?” Garrity told WMAR. “No one knows. I mean, he's not going to be able to drive or walk, and rehab is going to be a long time.”
The GoFundMe campaign had raised more than $10,000 of its $50,000 goal as of Tuesday morning.
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