SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – Early Monday morning, Barbara Carpenter was walking on McNeil Road across from Teague Middle School when she was struck by a vehicle. The driver took off.
Carpenter was rushed to the hospital after a passerby found her lying near the crosswalk and called police.
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“He said he just stood there and prayed over me the whole time,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter said she was listening to music with headphones on during her walk, but she looked both ways before crossing the intersection.
“I probably got about a third of the way maybe and I remember looking to my left and seeing this car coming at me and saying to myself, ‘Oh my God, this is gonna hurt really bad,’” Carpenter said. “And then lights out.”
When she opened her eyes, Carpenter said she was frantic and discombobulated.
The man who found her, law enforcement officers and neighbors passing by came to her aid.
After the ambulance arrived, Carpenter had a conversation with an EMT while headed to the hospital.
“I said, ‘This is a very bad dream I’m having. I need to wake up and get out of it.’ He said, ‘No, honey, this isn’t a dream. This is really happening,’” she said.
Doctors assessed her injuries at the hospital. She has several bruises and abrasions all over her body.
“The doctors and the police officers all said 1,000% my injuries are very typical of that... (hitting) the windshield,” she said.
Carpenter said she believes the suspect vehicle is a light-colored sedan with a potentially broken windshield.
She still has a difficult time accepting that the person who hit her just left her there on the ground.
“Don’t leave me there with nothing. It’s hurtful to think people have no conscious,” Carpenter said.
Now she said she needs closure. She is asking anyone who saw anything or knows anything to report it.
Carpenter is hesitant about returning to that area for her routine walks.
“It’s gonna be really difficult to go there because I just picture myself laying there and someone just knowing it and leaving me. I can’t tell you what that does to me,” she said.
A Seminole County Deputy told News 6 the Florida Highway Patrol is now investigating the case.