Two weeks after being struck by a pickup in her neighborhood, Berdie Friedman, a great-grandmother who for two decades ran a beauty salon out of her home in the Sloan’s Lake neighborhood, died at a Denver hospital this week.
Police still are searching for the motorist who struck Friedman, 79, on Oct. 17 at the intersection of Colfax Avenue and Quitman Street.
Her husband of more than 60 years still hopes the driver will come forward. “You can’t help but feel angry,” Harry Friedman said.
Police said that if charges are filed, they likely will include vehicular homicide.
Berdie Friedman was struck by what witnesses described as a 1970s to 1980s Chevy pickup, possibly red or red and white.
A hit-and-run victim struck just two days before Friedman in Edgewater died from her injuries Monday, the Jefferson County Coroner told 9News.
Erica Lynn Helms, 22, died from a head injury suffered on Oct. 15 when she was struck in the 2000 block of Sheridan Boulevard. The driver who struck Helms, Triciann N. Valverde, 25, of Wheat Ridge, turned herself in three days later, police said.
Friedman was crossing the busy intersection just down the street from her house when she was struck. A motorist put his life in danger to run out on the street to pull her from the path of other cars.
She was rushed to Denver Health Medical Center with broken ribs, broken bones in her leg and severe internal bleeding, her family said. Friedman spent much of the past two weeks on life-support systems fighting for her life, her husband said. After a week in the hospital, her heart stopped, but doctors were able to revive her.
Monday afternoon, her heart stopped a final time, family said.
Friedman met her husband – an armaments instructor working on B-17s at Lowry Air Force Base – at the USO, and they married a year later. The couple raised three daughters and have four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
For about 25 years, she ran her beauty shop, “Berdie’s Cage.”
“She was so good to everybody and had so many friends who loved her,” her husband said.
Memorial services will be held at 11 a.m. today at the Hebrew Education Alliance, 3600 S. Ivanhoe St., followed by burial at Rose Hill Cemetery.
