Glen Reid puts his plastic support boot back on after physical therapy. The boot helps supports his leg that can’t yet support his body. He was the victim of a hit-and-run accident in West Warwick a month ago.

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The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

WEST WARWICK –– Glen Reid was just about to step up on the curb when the sedan struck him from behind and sent him flying into the air and bouncing off the roof of the car. He landed with his face in a gutter full of water on that rainy Friday night a month ago, a witness later told him, after she rolled him out of the gutter in the 900 block of Main Street.

As the Warwick man attends physical therapy twice a week and recovers from the crash, unable to return to work as a pipefitter, he still focuses on one thing: the driver left him lying in that gutter in the pouring rain.

“The guy left me for dead,” Reid, 50, said Monday, hours after the police publicly disclosed the hit-and-run accident they’ve been investigating for a month. “You hit an animal, and you pull over. I’m a human being. This guy took me right out and just took off. That’s pretty sad.”

Then he clarifies that, while he keeps saying “he” as he tells the tale, he doesn’t even know if it was a man or a woman driving the sedan.

Reid says he has spoken to that witness but cannot recall her name. He has given her name and number to his lawyer, David Revens, who could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Reid says he never heard the car coming, and he said his hearing’s perfect.

He never saw the car coming as he crossed the street around 9:20 p.m. on June 5 to visit a friend at the Portuguese International Club, a place he had visited only once before.

He had parked across the street because there’s no parking at the club. The area is poorly lit, Reid said, and there is no crosswalk.

It’s just down the street –– half a mile –– from where teenager Andrew Coit was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in March 2007 as he played the guitar on the side of the road, mourning the death of a friend who died when he crashed his mother’s minivan into a utility pole.

The police have never found that hit-and-run driver.

Reid said the witness told him he had nearly made it across Main Street, and was about to step up on that curb when the car struck. She said was horrified by what she saw.

“She said, ‘You were doing 360s in the air,’ ” Reid said. “And I smacked the ground.”

People have told Reid since the accident that it’s a bad stretch of road and that drivers fly through there all the time.

The police are seeking help from the public in identifying the driver, who has eluded them for a month, said Detective Sgt. Scott Amaral, the department’s public information officer.

“Detectives were investigating it at the time,” he said when asked why the police are just now seeking the public’s help. “Until they come to me, I don’t release anything.”

The detectives have come up short and have no leads, he said.

REID SAID he broke his lower left leg and now has a stainless-steel rod from his knee to his ankle, holding the leg together. He also broke his shoulder, right arm and two ribs. He has yet to return to his job as with Tiyoda-Serec Corporation, in North Kingstown — and has not received any money from Rhode Island’s temporary disability insurance, he said, despite many calls to get the ball rolling.

He doesn’t know why the system is so slow, he said, but with a wife who was laid off in January, this really hurt financially.

The police confirm that Reid suffered severe injuries and remained hospitalized for more than a week at Rhode Island Hospital. The injuries have prevented him from returning to work, the police say.

Reid said the witness watched the car that hit him pull over in front of the Portuguese International Club. The witness ran inside for help. When she came back outside, the driver was gone, Reid said.

Reid describes himself as standing 6 foot 1 and weighing 260 pounds.

“He definitely knew he hit me,” Reid said. “That’s why he pulled over.”

Reid hopes someone saw something that night that would help the police find the driver. Maybe, he says, a neighbor saw someone pulling into a driveway with a damaged car.

“I’m hoping someone has the decency to come forward,” Reid said.

AMARAL SAID that although witnesses told the police a dark-colored sedan drove north toward Coventry after the accident, anyone who knows about any type of vehicle with similar damage should call the police. It’s possible, Amaral said, that the vehicle may have looked dark to a witness but really wasn’t.

The police believe the collision may have damaged the front passenger side of the sedan, including the hood and windshield. An accident of this type often breaks a windshield, Amaral said.

The department asks anyone with information about the accident to call Detective Stephen Vannini at (401) 827-9006. Callers may remain anonymous.

Doctors have told Reid he won’t be back at work for at least four months because his injuries were so severe. He doesn’t even know if he’ll be able to do the work again that ordinarily has him flying around the world installing the de-greasing machines he builds.

“I’m just hoping I’ll heal,” he says, “and the older you get, the longer it takes.”

kbramson@projo.com