Negligence is a standard of care that is measured against the conduct that one would expect from a reasonable person under similar circumstances. A negligent person doesn’t have to intend harm for a victim to recover compensation to help pay for medical bills, lost wages and other damages. This is essentially why we call these occurrences accidents and not crimes.
There are, however, some motor vehicle accidents in which the actions of a driver go beyond what the average person may consider a “typical” accident. Hit-and-run collisions often fall under this category not only leading to the possibility of punitive civil damages in some jurisdictions but also criminal sanctions. Police in Port St. Lucie are currently looking for a driver that struck a teenage girl and then fled the scene, leaving the critically injured girl lying in the ditch.
According to the Port St. Lucie investigators, at approximately 6:45 on Monday morning the 18-year-old girl was walking near the road when she was struck by a gray Nissan Sentra. The force of the collision propelled her fragile body 30 feet away from the point of the collision.
Instead of the driver of the vehicle stopping to render aid, it was a nurse that showed concern for the injured victim. The nurse approached the young girl who was laying face-down in the grass with significant trauma to her body, as noted by the police report.
The nurse took the young girl’s pulse and checked to make sure that she was breathing. After she determined that the young girl was alive, the nurse asked “Can you hear me?” but there was no response.
When emergency medical personnel arrived on the scene, they transported the victim by air to St. Mary’s Medical Center where she was listed in critical condition.
Source: WFLX, “Police searching for driver who hit student,” Rachel Leigh, April 7, 2014
