A young man is in serious condition after a hit and run Thursday night in downtown Ottawa. Now the hunt is on for the owner of a red 4-door Chevrolet who police believe may have struck him and taken off. It happened just before 8 p.m. on Murray Street between Cumberland and King Edward. That area of the city is packed with people day and night. There were lots of witnesses to the hit and run, including the young man's friend. 

It appears the pair was running across Murray Street, in the middle of the road.  It happens all the time, people jaywalking across that street in front of cars but that decision last night nearly cost the young man his life.

‘He’s unconscious, he's unstable he had a cracked head open,’ says the victim’s friend, James Barret, ‘a severe concussion. I don't know, this all happened so fast right?’

Barrett saw his friend get hit last night as they crossed the street to get a cup of tea at the Shepherds of Good Hope.

Today, a volunteer at the Shepherds says he, too, witnessed the incident. He didn’t want his name used.

‘That car was going too fast, he was going with the yellow light,’ he says, ‘and he schmucked him good. He hit the windshield, did a somersault and landed on his head.’

Ottawa Police have several witnesses and now one good lead.

‘We’re asking the public for any assistance if they might have seen a four-door Chevrolet red in color, going eastbound on Murray at this time,’ says Constable Chuck Benoit with the Ottawa Police.

The victim, who's in his 20's, remains in serious but stable condition in hospital.

Catherine Hacksel works just up the street from where it happened, ‘It’s just a bad combination,’ she says, ‘of some people not caring about the people in this neighborhood, resentful of the folks who are jaywalking the strip and think it won't bother anyone if I just run away from the situation.’

  No one from the Shepherds would go on camera but in the few minutes our CTV camera was there, it became clear that traffic is fast and jaywalking common.

‘I do it, going to Tim Horton’s,’ says Tiffany Rose, ‘I don't go all the way down, I cross in the middle where there's cars, everybody does it right here.’

Jacques Bolduc says the solution is simple:  drivers just need to slow down.

‘We’re human beings,’ he says across from the Shepherds of Good Hope, ‘This is my arm.  You break this arm, you can’t replace it.’

Police are still looking for more witnesses and using any surveillance footage off nearby cameras to help in their investigation.