Journalist looks online for help in finding who hit him

The introduction to Brian Hickey's new Web page reads:

"On Nov. 28, I was nearly killed by a hit-and-run driver while walking to catch the train home. More than two months later, there's scant information coming from the public, and the person has yet to fess up. It's time for that to change."

Desperate for tips in the accident that left him for dead, the former Philadelphia City Paper managing editor, who often chronicled the city's violent crime, started a Facebook page yesterday morning titled "Help Me Find the Person Who Almost Killed Me."

The night after Thanksgiving, Hickey, 35, had been hanging out in his native Westmont with his high school buddies, sharing a few beers at Tom Fisher's Tavern.

Hickey left the bar shortly after 10. As he walked to the nearby PATCO station in Collingswood, he was struck down by a hit-and-run driver.

After the accident, he lay in a coma for two weeks. Doctors removed two pieces of his skull to alleviate the swelling.

Hickey, now recuperating at his East Falls home, where he lives with his wife, Angela, his dog and two cats, wears a helmet and a back brace, and performs physical therapy exercises every day.

As he notes in his first post, he's "still able to walk, talk, think, complain."

"I'm lucky to be where I am right now," said Hickey, who works for Philly.com as a contract producer. "I was just walking down my steps, and just a few weeks ago, I couldn't raise my right arm. To be where I am, it's almost miraculous." (Philly.com is owned by Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C., which publishes The Inquirer.)

In the hospital, Hickey said he focused solely on his survival. But sitting at home, three weeks out of the hospital, "I go through bouts where I wonder why the hell hasn't this person come clean," he said.

"If he or she called me anonymously and said, 'I'm sorry,' that might be good enough for me," said Hickey. "I just need to know they fessed up, because I could have been dead."