TAMPA, FLA. (WSVN) - A man is on the road to recovery after becoming the victim of hit and run horror. He said he’s lucky to be alive after being dragged for hundreds of feet and was then left for dead.
Jonny Fitzcharles didn’t need to see the video to know how close he was to losing his life earlier this month.
“It’s been a weird week of saying the word lucky, like that is not a word I expected to say, but I really am, all things considered,” Fitzcharles said.
Somehow, 12 days later, he’s able to sit and talk about the hit-and run crash that nearly killed him.
“When it happened, it was so fast. I don’t remember being under the car,” he said.
Fitzcharles had only owned his moped for less than a month and was riding it near an intersection in Tampa.
“I remember she was just locked straight on and she just kept going,” he said.
When the driver blew through a stop sign, she slammed into him, practically running him over. The driver was seen getting out of the car.
“Made eye contact with me, saw my condition,” he said.
She got back in and drove away, leaving him on the ground with one thought going through his mind.
“That’s what I was screaming at the scene was, ‘Am I going to die? Somebody tell me, am I going to die? Yes or no?'”‘ he said.
It turned out, his injuries were bad, but not life-threatening.
He went to the hospital with broken bones.
“So my shoulder was completely out of the socket going down. I had a broken hip,” he said.
He also had a lot of cuts and scrapes.
When watching the video, Fitzcharles was surprised that he’s already able to walk.
“Just laying there on the ground, I figured there had to be something internally that was going to work again,” he said. “So personally, I thought that was it.”
His focus now is on his recovery and finding the person who left him for dead.
“If she saw me, she could have seen how scared I was, and to just walk away form that was obviously unthinkable. I can’t put it into words,” he said.
Fitzcharles and his family started an online fundraiser to help cover the costs. The driver responsible has not been found.
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