Joseph Soto, 4, was getting off the school bus in his neighborhood when he got hit by a blue Chevy pick up truck which then dragged him into the street in Pasco County, Florida.
Soto was severely injured after just concluding his ninth day of school, leaving him with a broken leg and heavy road rash, according to WFLA.
‘They’re a coward, they’re an animal’: 4-year-old dragged down street in Pasco hit-and-run | @WFLAJeff has the mother’s reaction>> https://t.co/hQk8awfGrE https://t.co/dTPNZGZgxD
— WFLA NEWS (@WFLA) August 26, 2019
The driver reportedly never stopped.
Jennifer Moore asked the bus driver about her son, who drove her to the last stop where she saw her son lying on the street surrounded by people.
“When I turned the corner, my son was laying in the middle of the road with a group of people around him because a truck hit him and took off,” Moore said.
“To be able to run over a child, a small child, there’s no reason for it,” said Moore, controlling her tears.
Joseph was taken to Tampa General Hospital and treated.
Soto reportedly remembers everything before he got hit and dragged.“He stopped and looked both ways and nobody was coming, so he started walking and that’s when he looked again,” Moore said. “He saw a blue truck coming and so he tried to run the rest of the way across the street. He said, ‘Mommy, it didn’t slow down and it knocked me over and dragged me on the ground and then I fell asleep.”
Moore told WFLA that Soto is ok but has a long recovery road ahead.
The Florida Highway Patrol is currently investigating.
Hit-and-Run Woman Caught in Mexico After Fleeing From L.A.
A woman who allegedly killed a dad of two on Father’s Day and critically injured 4 other people in a hit-and-run incident was arrested after police found her in Mexico.
LAPD wrote on Twitter on Apr. 25, that Maritza Joana Lara, 27, was taken into custody.
“Remember this horrific fatal hit & run crash? The suspect, Maritza Lara, fled the country but is now in police custody, after being located in Mexico. More details will be provided at a press conference scheduled for Tuesday,” read the LAPD HQ Twitter account.
Francisco Hernandez Rivas, 48, was killed in the crash.
Remember this horrific fatal hit & run crash? The suspect, Maritza Lara, fled the country but is now in police custody, after being located in Mexico. More details will be provided at a press conference scheduled for Tuesday. https://t.co/k2VqenYFiA
— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) August 25, 2019
LAPD posted dramatic footage from the incident on Twitter on Jun 18, adding that:
“Maritza Joana Lara is wanted for a Fatal Hit & Run that killed an innocent man on Father’s Day & critically injured 4 others at the intersection of Parthenia & Haskell. After the collision she’s seeing on video walking away.”
School Bus Accidents
In 2018, there was a rash of accidents at school bus stops, leaving several children dead across the United States.
The spate of school bus accidents started in Indiana on Oct. 30, when a driver failed to recognize a school bus’s flashing lights and hit four children who were crossing the street in Rochester to board a bus. The 24-year-old female driver was charged with three counts of reckless homicide following the incident. All three siblings died.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a recent report (pdf), there were 1,172 school-transportation-related fatal motor vehicle crashes between 2006 and 2015.
“From 2006 to 2015, 102 school-age pedestrians (18 and younger) have died in school-transportation-related crashes. Sixty-one percent were struck by school buses, 3 percent by vehicles functioning as school buses, and 36 percent by other vehicles (passenger cars, light trucks and vans, large trucks, and motorcycles, etc.) involved in the crashes,” the report said.
According to data from Injury Facts:
“From 2008 to 2017, about 70% of the deaths in school bus-related crashes were occupants of vehicles other than the school bus, and 17% were pedestrians. About 6% were school bus passengers, 4% were school bus drivers and 3% were pedalcyclists.”
“Of the people injured in school bus-related crashes from 2007 to 2016, about 35% were school bus passengers, 8% were school bus drivers and 50% were occupants of other vehicles. The remainder were pedestrians, pedalcyclists, and other or unknown.”
