MERIDEN — Samantha Yates had a concussion and her grandmother Sylvia Yates is left without a car because a hit-and-run driver totaled it in a crash on Hanover Street last week.

That’s why Samantha’s mother, Simone Micciche, hopes that anyone with information about the Feb. 24 crash will call Meriden police at 203-238-1911 or anyone willing to help the 69-year-old Yates regain her motorized mobility will donate to a gofundme account Micciche has established called “HIT N RUN DRIVER TOTALS GRANDMAS CAR.”

”It’s a grandmother that no longer has a vehicle. She has no means of acquiring another one,” said Micciche, a Meriden native who lives in a suburb of Greenville, South Carolina. “They had to go take it away and get rid of it right on the spot.”

Witnesses described the hit-and-run driver as a man, 50 to 60 years old, wearing a black jacket over a flannel shirt, police said.

The man was lucky to get away, Micciche said. A good samaritan followed the 2012 GMC Sierra from Hanover Street after the accident, which occurred at about 10 p.m., but lost the pickup truck on Hall Avenue. 

The 23-year-old Yates and her 69-year-old grandmother were both banged up in the collision, Micciche said.

The pickup is silver and should have heavy front-end damage, said Micciche, whose family owned the Little Rendezvous pizza restaurant on Pratt Street for 22 years.

“Just think if it was your grandmother,” Micciche said. “Wouldn’t you want somebody to help her?”

nsambides@record-journal.com203-317-2279Twitter: @JrSambides