MMA Fighter Jordan Parsons in Coma, Right Leg Amputated, After Delray Beach Hit-and-Run

Jordan Parsons is a 25-year-old MMA featherweight fighter. He trains with the Blackzillians, an MMA team based at the Jaco Hybrid Training Center in Boca Raton. Since 2010, Parsons has 11 wins and two losses under his belt. Parsons is currently a featherweight prospect and was gearing up for a...

By Jess Swanson

May 3, 2016

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Jordan Parsons is a 25-year-old MMA featherweight fighter. He trains with the Blackzillians, an MMA team based at the Jaco Hybrid Training Center in Boca Raton. Since 2010, Parsons has 11 wins and two losses under his belt. Parsons is currently a featherweight prospect and was gearing up for a match in San Jose, California, less than two weeks away.

But Sunday morning, between midnight and 1 a.m., the MMA fighter was struck by a Range Rover on Lindell Boulevard and South Federal Highway in Delray Beach. The car fled, leaving Parsons severely injured. Parsons' right leg was partially amputated. Later, at Delray Medical Center, Parsons’ full right leg was amputated because of preliminary organ failure. He is currently in a coma.

The news has shattered the MMA community. “Jordan Parsons is a member of the Bellator family and we will be there for him in any way that we can on his long road to recovery,” says Danny Brenner, spokesperson for Bellator, the MMA promotion company that sponsors Parsons. “We’re monitoring his situation closely and we hope to have more news soon.”

Delray Beach Police are still looking for information about the hit-and-run. Investigators believe that Parsons was walking in the crosswalk with headphones on. In the meantime, an online fundraiser for Parsons has gathered more than $26,809 from 405 people in the past day. The money is going to Parsons’ medical bills.

People who know Parsons commented with kind words.

“I brought my 17-year-old son to train,” says one woman. “You were always so kind and you were a good role model for my son.”

Another wrote: “Very sad to find out what you’re going through. You are a warrior and will push through this like you do everything else.”

“Such an awful thing to happen to such a nice, young man,” another wrote.

Originally from Fargo, North Dakota, Parsons wrestled on his high school team in Michigan and then started competing as an amateur MMA fighter in 2008, when he was 17. In 2010, he launched his professional career. He has been sponsored by Championship Fighting Alliance, Driller Promotions, and, since 2014, Bellator MMA.

Delray Beach Police are still looking for the driver that struck Parsons and offering a $1,000 reward. Anyone with information is asked to call 561-243-7800.

Investigators think the hit-and-run suspect vehicle looks like this with damage to driver's side front headlight. pic.twitter.com/zmgbx3PCPG
— Delray Beach Police (@DelrayBeachPD) May 2, 2016

This mirror left at the scene of hit-and-run crash belongs to a 2012-13 grey Range Rover Sport. @CrimeStoppersPB pic.twitter.com/68CNeHg3SG
— Delray Beach Police (@DelrayBeachPD) May 2, 2016

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Jess Swanson is a staff writer at New Times. Born and raised in Miami, she graduated from the University of Miami’s School of Communication and wrote briefly for the student newspaper until realizing her true calling: pissing off fraternity brothers by reporting about their parties on her crime blog. Especially gifted in jumping rope and solving Rubik’s cubes, she also holds the title for longest stint as an unpaid intern in New Times history. She left the Magic City for New York to earn her master’s degree from Columbia University School of Journalism, where she spent a year profiling circumcised men who were trying to regrow their foreskins for a story that ultimately won the John Horgan Award for Critical Science Journalism. Terrified by pizza rats and arctic temperatures, she quickly returned to her natural habitat.

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