A crash involving an electric bike nearly took the life of Janet Stotko, a Hastings, Minnesota, woman, last summer.

"I remember walking out the front door of my house, I set my Apple Watch and I left, and that's the last thing I remember," Stotko said.

She was unresponsive when officers arrived. Laying beside her was the e-bike that struck her from behind at 25 mph. It happened on a sidewalk just blocks from her home, and left her with a traumatic brain injury.

The 14-year-old rider was too young to legally operate it.

"I will never taste or smell again. My ear hasn't stopped ringing. I have an open orbital roof fracture," she said.

Stotko spent three weeks in the hospital and will never fully recover.

"There just hasn't been any accountability," she said.

No charges for the rider, no compensation for medical bills well over $20,000, and no one from the rider's family ever contacted her.

That's why Stotko is working with Republican state Rep. Tom Dippel to change Minnesota law.

"Janet's story is tragic and it's real, and it could happen to anybody who's just walking down the sidewalk," Dippel said.

He's proposing a bill to reclassify high-powered e-bikes as motorcycles.

"A class 3 e-bike is very powerful, oftentimes weighs significantly more than a regular bicycle," Dippel said. "If you run into somebody, it has a huge impact."

That classification would also clarify insurance responsibilities and keep e-bikes off sidewalks.

With the support of her husband and children, Stotko is using her pain to fuel her advocacy.

"I wouldn't want anybody else to go through this," she said. "I am grateful and I feel very blessed that I'm still here."