Door staff at PLAY Dance Bar reacted quickly when they learned a patron had been hit by a car on the street outside the establishment in the early morning of July 2.
“From my understanding they were amazing as far as like sealing off the street and things like that and making sure that EMTs and cops got through,” Taylor Wood told O&AN.
Wood had come to midtown for the evening with friends from Watertown, where he lives, and they came specially to visit PLAY.
“There were some girls who I was celebrating a birthday with and, you know, for the atmosphere they wanted to go out there,” he said.
The entire group, which totalled five people, had found a hotel room for the overnight earlier on that afternoon and around 1am they decided to turn in, catch some rest and return home to Watertown in the morning. They called Lyft to arrange a ride to the hotel.
Before he was struck, the last thing Wood remembers was that the car had arrived and it was waiting for them across the street from PLAY.
“The last thing I have a full recollection of was I was talking to one of my friends on the sidewalk about where the Lyft was,” he said. “It was just catty-corner to us, across the street. We all took off as a group, walking over there to him and the next thing I remember I was, next thing I know I’m waking up at Vanderbilt, the critical care center.”
Nashville Police arrived quickly to seal off the area, while an emergency medical team collected Wood and took him to Vanderbilt. He awoke later that morning to learn he’d suffered a concussion, collapsed lung, and a number of scrapes and bruises.
“My left side was hit so that would tell me that [the driver was] going back towards the interstate,” he said. “From the stories I’ve heard from people around, there was no braking. Once the driver hit me supposedly he’d slowed down like he was gonna stop and then he took off again.”
Wood contacted O&AN to reveal himself as the one struck by the hit-and-run a few days after the incident. “I feel better,” he said when we spoke. “It’s been a few days. I guess overall I feel better than I did waking up on Saturday! I haven’t been back to check up on my everything yet.”
Already he knows the hospital and doctor bills will be taxing. Though he is insured, Wood can’t yet return to work and is anticipating weeks of medical visits to check in on the bruising, the concussion, the collapsed lung to be sure it’s healing fine. Wood said that multiple specialists require their own deductible payments and whether they’re in or outside his network can escalate the final bill even higher. He’s opened a GoFundMe campaign with hopes that it will offset some of the financial expenses.