College student recovers after crash on e-scooter

STATESBORO, Ga. (FOX 5 Atlanta) - A metro Atlanta college student is talking about her near-death experience on an electric scooter. Talyor McCullough suffered serious injuries with doctors telling her family that she was lucky to have survived.

Electric scooters have shown up in communities all across Georgia including college towns like Statesboro. That’s where McCullough is a student at Georgia Southern University.

A photograph provided to FOX 5 News showed McCullough on Nov. 16, right before a date with her boyfriend. A few hours later an air ambulance flew her from Statesboro to Savannah for life-saving surgery.

“It’s kind of a blur. I don’t remember the accident, I do remember that we were trying to cross a street on the Lime Scooter and got hit by the car,” McCullough said.

Taylor and her boyfriend Daniel were riding together on a Lime Scooter. According to the family, a car struck the two at more than 50 miles an hour.

“We got the phone call that every parent doesn’t want to receive,” Nick McCullough, Taylor’s father, said.

Taylor had suffered multiple facial fractures, a broken nose, and leg and had a blood clot on her brain.

“She had a breathing tube a neck brace.  She had blood coming out of her ears, her eyes, her mouth. They had every tube hooked up to her.  It was really hard to see,” mother Stacie McCullough said.

“When you don’t recognize your own child, something terrible has happened,” the father said.

Doctors feared she would not pull through. And the family credits a miracle that she is home now recovering and getting better.

Taylor said: “It’s just life-changing. One minute you are fine, riding on a scooter trying to get home. Next thing, a car hits you. It completely changes your whole way of life. You have to completely relearn how to use your leg. You are worried if you face is going to be the same.”

The McCullough family would like for people to think of Taylor’s story, whether you are a rider, whether you are in a community considering what to do with electric scooters.

“I would warn all parents of any college-age students, not to ride these scooters,” Nick said.

“We were in the hospital and the doctor said, they have seen only three other people with injuries that were as severe and those people didn’t live.  So it’s amazing to be here still and say I got hit by a car a lived,” McCullough said.

Taylor is a college student.  She has no insurance.  Friends have helped out by setting up a Go Fund Me page gofundme.com/angels-for-taylor.