Thursday, November 30, 2006

More on Hit and Run

From Terri: "As long as I live, I'll never get the image of him laying in the dirt, bleeding and struggling to breathe."


Here is the story from TBO.com


By Valerie Kalfrin
The Tampa Tribune

A 50-year-old man has been taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital in very critical condition after being slammed into by a hit-and-run driver taking her daughter to school.

Lurvin P. Calderon was driving a blue 1984 Oldsmobile westbound on Hanna Avenue taking her 10-year-old daughter to Seminole Elementary School when she hit the man, Tampa Police say. The impact sent him flying over a chain link fence, into a yard at 806 Hanna.

Police are not releasing his name.

After the accident, Calderon continued down the street to the school.

Hillsborough County Sheriff Deputy Natalie Napolitano was at the intersection of North Nebraska and Hanna Avenue doing a safety survey on the intersection, counting students who walk to school because there is a high volume of cars. Napolitano is looking to see if the students should be bused for safety purposes.

“I heard that all-too-familiar sound when something gets struck,” she said. “I turned around and a witness flagged me over.”

Napolitano arrived at the scene and tried to give medical aid to the victim, police say.

“He was in bad shape,” Napolitano says.

Irazema Viera-Roquemore, another HCSO Deputy, was outside the school waiting to give a safety presentation when she was flagged down by another witness who told her the driver in the Oldsmobile hit someone.

Deputy Viera-Roquemore walked the driver back to the scene.

Calderon, a dancer at 2001 Space Odyssey, is undergoing field sobriety tests.


WFTS Story

18 comments:

IFly said...

This is tragic. My heart goes out to this man and his family. Like the fences on Florida Av, it's a crying shame that someone had to be injured, and possibly killed before the authorities take the problem seriously. In my area we seem to have three kinds of violators, cut-throughs avoiding the Florida/Hillsborough intersection , used car test drives(it's like they don't think twice about "lets see what this puppy can do" on residential streets), and McNatt's Cleaners vans.

Anonymous said...

Well, addressing the flying McNatt's vans should be the easist to fix

Unknown said...

When will people learn? Another reason for speed bumps.

CouldBeSherry said...

She should be a speed bump!

IFly said...

I think "Speed Bump" might be her stage name.

Mal Carne said...

I live on the West side of Hanna. There's a lot of idiots speeding down the street, but by far the worst are the test drives from ABC autos and McNatt's seemingly having a dry cleaning emergency every 45 minutes.

My boss gave me a wonderful idea today: roll a soccer ball into the street when you see a speeder. Brain instantly thinks "oh crap, kid!". I suppose there's no liablity UNTIL someone gets in an accident.

There's no sidewalk on the S. side of Hanna. I watched kids trying to trick or treat on Halloween with cars ripping down the road at 35 mph. I was honestly scared for the kids safety so I parked my truck on the street and put my wife's on the other side. Instant bottle neck, no one went by there faster than 20 and I could relax a little bit without having to worry about some little girl in a princess costume going splat. -of course this didn't keep the drivers from speeding right back up after they passed.
I've got decent insurance, maybe I'll start doing this full time if the city won't do anything.

--side note: Hanna is an emergency route for Fire and EMS so my neighbors have been told that the city can't put speed bumps in.

Anonymous said...

To ShreksWife
Your stated comment "she'll grow up to be a drinking, drug abusing irresponsible stripper, speeder, hit-and-run driver" is so beyond reasonable comprehension. Allow this poor girl to have the capacity to be her own individual and think for a second about the trauma that she has encountered and will encounter with her mother most definitely going to jail. Oh my her mother is a stripper, big deal. Her actions and not her profession is what needs to be discussed. I guess it is easy to place the societal scarlet letter on a person for having a profession that involves sexual display. We don't always assume the personal characteristics of our parents or perhaps you might have inherited the characteristic of judgment instead of compassion from your parents. Our thoughts should be focused on the poor man who was hit and the probably terrified daughter. This entire incident is tragic and spouting off vitriolic sentiments of judgment towards this woman's profession and making predictions about her daughter does nothing but add insult to injury.

Anonymous said...

I don't have anything against strippers,but i do have something against the strip club owners. Thank God redner didn't get elected. These type of businesses are a haven for illegal activity and nobody cares until it spills into the neighborhood. Where does the drug addicted dancer go to feed here habit when she can't dance anymore? Nebraska Ave.

AngelSil said...

I found it kind of odd that they mentioned her profession in the story. So, she's a stripper. Who cares? I was far more interested in her previous criminal past than her job. It's not like being a stripper is illegal or somehow means you're more likely to commit a hit and run*. Taking drugs, on the other hand *is* illegal and certainly (while under the influence) impairs the ability to drive a vehicle safely.

*Yes, I know strippers. Certainly there are bad cases in the profession, but not all of them are drug-addicts or felons.

Anonymous said...

I would suspect that if this person was an accountant at a local firm, that information would be published as well in an article on this crime. I think that "stripper" just tends to stand-out more for the obvious salacious reasons. Accountant would not elicit the same reaction when reading.

Anonymous said...

I am wondering why the mother was also not charged with child endargement or neglect as she was driving under the influence with her minor child in the car. Then DCF coudl come in and remove the children from the home. In case no one noticed according to the Tribune she was previously charged with growing Marijuana.

Anonymous said...

Oh please don't take her kid away, evidiently she is straight so leave the child with her. Don't you know that straight parents make great parents. Thank goodness that Florida still does not allow gays to adopt. Heaven forbid this poor child be riding safely to school with a homosexual.

Praise the lord for straight stripper parents.

Anonymous said...

Gay.

Breeders are the REASON your here.

Unknown said...

How in the world did we get on a gay subject? This accident has nothing to do with being gay, lesbian or stripper. This is a problem with booze and drugs. Those are real big problems to me. I grew up around it so I know the dangers of both. I'll take the gays and lesbians over booze and drugs any day. They're nicer than some straight people I seen. Get back on the subject.

Has anyone heard how the man is doing?

Anonymous said...

In the ICU at St. Joes, in very critical condition. The first paramedic on the scene is a friend of mine and she said, if he lived he would probably be paralyzed from C6 down. Bad compound fracture of the right leg, internal injuries, major head trauma, etc...

Unknown said...

Thank you. My prayers go out to him for a full and speedy recovery.

Anonymous said...

Was she speeding and where was the victim when struck (on the sidewalk or in the street)?
The sidewalk where this happened goes right to the curb, with a chain link fence bordering the other edge. Combined w the volume and speeding along Hanna this is a dangerous sidewalk. That it is on the same block as an elementary school is ludicrous. A year ago I called the city about this. After looking it over they concluded it was not a problem. What will be the city's liability when a school kid is hit?

Anonymous said...

Well here goes a silly question. How difficult would it be to have a 2 foot barrier wall put on sidewalks that touch the street so cars can't get on the sidewalk?