Alexa Kropf, University at Albany student from Floral Park, in medically induced coma after hit-and-run

A Floral Park college student days away from finishing her freshman year at the University at Albany is in a medically induced coma after being struck early Saturday morning by the driver of an off-road vehicle, according to her father and Albany police.

The driver took off after hitting Alexa Kropf, 19, police said.

Kropf, a graduate of the Sewanhaka school district’s Floral Park Memorial High School, was walking with friends when she was struck shortly after midnight. Her father, Jim Kropf, a physical education teacher from Floral Park, said his daughter was taken to Albany Medical Center and placed in a coma because of swelling in her brain. He said Alexa also sustained two compound fractures of her lower right leg, pelvis fractures, broken ribs and bruised lungs.

Police in a news release said “multiple witnesses” saw a lone man driving a dirt bike “at a high rate of speed while weaving in and out of groups of people” on Hudson Avenue. The force of the collision threw the victim into the air and caused her to land in the road several feet away from the initial impact, according to the release, which did not use Alexa Kropf's name.

“No parent should have to go through this,” her father said. Of the all-terrain vehicle’s operator, he said: “If he has any decency as a human being, he should step forward and own up to this horrible act.”

A joint statement Saturday from Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan and Police Chief Eric Hawkins accused the driver of “unconscionable depravity.” Authorities were using “every resource at our disposal” to locate the driver, they said.

Albany law prohibits ATVs and dirt bikes on public streets and sidewalks.

Jordan Carleo-Evangelist, a University at Albany spokesman, said the area where Kropf was struck is about halfway between the university's downtown and uptown campuses and is a popular residential area for students from SUNY and other area schools. “It would not be unusual, on a warm spring weekend, for people to be out and about in that neighborhood,” he said.

University officials made counseling available to students after the hit-and-run, he said.

“It's a shocking event, and any time a member of our extended community is injured, or, God forbid, worse, it does have a profound impact on campus," he added.

The school, which had its last day of classes Tuesday, draws many of its 17,000 students from Long Island and the New York metro area, he said. 

Alexa Kropf made the dean’s list in the fall semester. She dreams of a career in homeland security, her father said. “She’s just a kid that everyone wanted to be around — bright, friendly, social, caring,” he said.

A family friend started an online fundraiser to help pay for the costs of what she said would be multiple surgeries.

In a statement emailed by a representative Tuesday, Sewanhaka Interim Superintendent Thomas Dolan said: "Alexa and her family have all of our support and positive affirmations in her recovery.”