Loyola student hit in car by driver outside Bruno’s on Wine Wednesday, driver flees

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The outside of Bruno’s, a popular Uptown college bar. On Thursday, March 12, a Loyola student was hit outside the bar during the bar’s popular Wine Wednesday. The driver eventually fled. Gabriella Killett/The Maroon.

Gabriella Killett

A man, who fled the scene after, hit a Loyola student Thursday, March 12, at midnight in a car accident on the corner of Hillary St and Maple St., according to a New Orleans Police Department incident report given to victim Freshman Sociology major Eva Knowles.

The crash occurred in front of the popular Uptown bar, Bruno’s, Knowles said.

Knowles said she had her blinker on to turn and park when she “felt a bump.”

Upon getting out of her vehicle, Knowles’ friend and a passenger in the car took photos of the damage, which was apparent at the back right end of the vehicle, Knowles said.

The accident occurred during Bruno’s Wine Wednesday special, leaving the bar populated and amplifying the level of embarrassment, according to Knowles. Knowles perceived the responsible driver as being panicked.

“There were cars stacking up, and there’s the coronavirus situation,” Knowles said. “He was probably anxious from that too, but he was clearly under the influence being that he had tried to go around me, and his depth perception was so off that he hit my car.”

Upon meeting in an attempt to exchange insurance, the driver wasn’t walking straight, Knowles said. At one point, the driver went to her car and tried to punch the dent he caused out, according to passenger and Freshman Psychology major Kennedy Chatman.

“He wasn’t very compliant,” Knowles said.

Knowles said she and her passengers and friends decided to call the police after a woman and suspected bar patron informed them that she thought the driver was drunk.

When he had been informed that they did call the police, that’s when the driver left, Knowles said.

“I was so out of it, and I was really scared and frustrated,” Knowles said. “I was just trying to have a good time with my friends on the last day.”

Knowles said she understands people being stressed out amid coronavirus pandemic, as a lot of students of Loyola or Tulane aren’t from in the state, so they’re having to leave.

“If you want to do something, if you want to party, if you want to say goodbye, fine, have that last hoorah, ‘it’s corona time,’ whatever, but don’t do that and put other people at risk, or don’t do that and ruin somebody’s night because that’s one of our last nights in the city,” Knowles said.