FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - The driver of a van connected to a hit-and-run accident in Miramar, which sent a 7-year-old boy to the hospital, was released on bond, hours after he appeared before a judge, Thursday.
Sixty-three-year-old Milton Walker, who turned himself in to Miramar Police on Wednesday, appeared in bond court and was given a $5,000 bond. He bonded out Thursday night.
According to police, Walker, who has been remorseful, admitted to being the driver. He was charged with failure to stop and remain at an accident involving serious injury, failure to report information of an injured person and failure of driver to make a written report.
According to investigators, 7-year-old Jayden McFarlane was struck by Walker’s green and silver Chevrolet Astro van while riding his bicycle near Tropicana Street and Desoto Drive, Nov. 20. Surveillance video recorded the moment the boy was hit.
Walker then drove away from the scene.
Jayden was taken to Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital with a fractured shoulder. He has since been released, and doctors confirmed he will be OK.
Walker told the judge he thought he might have hit a garbage can when he was reaching down to pick up his glasses. “He was putting his glasses on, he thought it was a garbage can or something,” said his defense attorney, Terry Moons. “He had called his wife and said, ‘Listen, can you go and check and see what I hit?'”
On Thursday, McFarlane’s mother was still in disbelief. “Now, I don’t know if any garbage cans are being put down at 10:30 in the morning on a Sunday, but even if it was, there were people flagging you down, waving you down, and you just kept on going, weaving in and out of traffic,” she explained. “How did you just think you hit a garbage can?”
And the 7-year-old is still upset over what happened to him. “I was riding my bike, and I was looking both ways, but the car was speeding so fast that it hit me, and I fell right over there,” he said.
One neighbor hopes this incident will at least lead to the installation of speed bumps in the neighborhood. “He’s doing better,” said neighbor Maria Pinto. “He has a little bleeding on the brain. They’re monitoring him, but he’s fully conscious. No broken bones, thank the good Lord Jesus. This is really crazy. If we could get speed bumps here, that would be great.”
McFarlane’s mother said her heart goes out to the 63-year-old, but she said he should have stopped. “All this could have been avoided,” she said. “So right now, it’s up to the law. I have nothing to do or say about it.”
Now that he has been released, Walker faces some driving restrictions.
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