HOUSTON – A man with special needs is in the hospital fighting for his life after someone hit him and left him lying in the middle of the road.
Porfirio Alvarez, 53, was out walking along T C Jester Boulevard and Allen Street in the Washington Corridor when he was hit.
That was two weeks ago.
Fast forward to now and his family still isn’t any closer to answers as to who hit and left their loved one who was just out picking up cans to recycle.
“Everybody knows him in the neighborhood. Everybody knows that he collects cans,” said his sister, Maria Ramirez.
For Alvarez, that’s his hobby. The extra pocket change he gets from taking his haul to the scrap yard stretches a smile a mile long across his face.
Most people in the neighborhood will help him out and give them their scrap metal, but Alvarez doesn’t realize that everyone isn’t as kind.
“Someone who’s autistic, it’s very hard to tell him. He [doesn’t] understand that not everybody’s good out there,” Ramirez said.
On the evening of May 23, 2024, he found out about the worst kind of person. A person who hit him and left him lying for dead on T C Jester Boulevard near the train tracks.
“When the vehicle hit him, it threw him 40 feet,” said Alvarez’s niece Cecilia Alvarez.
A bartender from a nearby restaurant heard the crash and ran outside to see what happened. They found Alvarez’s shopping cart and cans spread out everywhere.
The person who hit him was long gone.
“Maybe that person thought that it was just trash. But if you hear something going everywhere, you would think you would, wouldn’t you want to stop to see what’s going on? What did you hear,” said Ramirez while fighting back tears.
To make matters worse, his family found out, not by a phone call, but an Apple AirTag tracker.
“My sister checks the location. It shows us he’s at Ben Taub [Hospital],” said Cecilia Alvarez.
He’s alive, but Alvarez is still in the hospital with a laundry list of broken bones. The accident left doctors with no other choice but to remove a kidney and his spleen.
To this day, he’s still intubated and the reality is - a recovery isn’t promising.
“It’s a long road. If he survives, it’s a long road to recovery,” Ramirez said.
“We’re just asking for anyone that knows any information. Or if you did it, just come forward. That’s all we ask: for justice,” added Alvarez.
The Houston Police Department is investigating this hit and run. Unfortunately, investigators don’t have enough concrete evidence to provide a description of the vehicle that hit Alvarez.
Detectives and the Alvarez Family are both asking anyone who knows something to come forward to help bring him justice.
You can submit an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers of Houston online or by calling 713-222-TIPS (8477).