What was claimed
A picture shows a young man hit by a car at various locations across the UK.
Our verdict
False. This picture was used in reports of a man who died of Covid in Alabama, US, in 2021.
Posts claiming to show someone injured in hit-and-run accident actually show man who died of Covid in 2021
Facebook posts claiming to show a young man recently hit by a car in various locations across the UK are hoaxes.
The man pictured actually died of Covid in Alabama, US, in 2021.
The same photo with similar text has been shared in local groups for Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds, and Stockport, among others.
One post says: “Please help! This young gentleman hit by a car few hours ago here in 📍Chipping campden villages , we couldn’t find any ID on him and he is still unconscious. Please help bump this post so that his friend’s or family may find him [sic].”
Other posts have nearly identical text, with only the location changed. We’ve also seen examples in Facebook groups in other countries.
But using reverse image search we found the picture actually shows a man named Josh Tidmore who died in the US state of Alabama in 2021 after contracting Covid-19 at the age of 36.
These posts all have the comments turned off, which can be an indication that a post is a hoax.
The same picture of Mr Tidmore has also been used in other hoaxes we have fact checked.
Our 2023 investigation into these types of hoax posts found they’re often edited later to include links to surveys, freebies or cheap housing. In February, we found these hoax posts continue to be an issue, with at least 47 communities across the UK being victim to nine different hoaxes we fact checked that month.
We’ve written to Meta asking the company to take stronger action in response to this problem.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the man pictured died of Covid in 2021 and was not involved in a recent hit-and-run accident in the UK.