What began as a pleasant afternoon in the Florida sun turned into agony when a Jeep Wrangler plowed into a man lying on the beach, according to police.
The 33-year-old man from Ocala, Florida, was lying face down on the sand in Ormond Beach, north of Daytona Beach, when he was hit by a Jeep on Saturday, April 5, according to a Volusia Sheriff’s Office statement posted on Facebook.
He suffered serious injuries, including a broken femur, fractured right forearm, third-degree burns, and a cracked pelvis. He was taken to the hospital, where he was reported to be in stable condition.
The driver, a 61-year-old woman, was attempting to back into a parking spot on the beach when she accidentally crossed over travel lines.
The victim, identified by FOX 35 Orlando as Colson Janey, told the local outlet that his afternoon reverie was interrupted, leaving him “screaming bloody murder”.
“I just got a Jeep a couple weeks ago,” Janey told FOX 35, explaining why he went to the beach that morning. “And it was something I wanted to do.
“All of a sudden, a tire rolled over my head. I’m just lying face first, crying and screaming.”
The man stated that his forearm was broken in two places and that he had to have a titanium rod implanted in his leg after the accident fractured his femur.
“It’s like I had two brains,” Janey explained to WESH 2. “One brain was screaming and reflecting on how much pain I was in. The other brain was being more rational, thinking, ‘OK, what’s wrong? “What is moving?”
Janey informed WESH that when he examined his body after being hit, his arm was “flattened” and his leg was “mangled.”
According to the sheriff’s department, the Jeep driver remained on the scene and fully cooperated with the investigation.
Deputies cited her for careless driving, claiming there were no signs of impairment.
“I know it sounds crazy, but throughout this whole time, I was just thanking God that I still had feeling in my extremities,” Janey said on FOX 35.
According to the local outlet, this was not the first incident on the beach. Several people have been seriously injured in vehicle accidents on the region’s beaches over the last year, including elderly beachgoers and teenagers.
According to the outlet, a Volusia County Beach Patrol sergeant hit two teenagers lying on Daytona Beach over Memorial Day weekend.
Janey told FOX 35 that the beach lacks clear markings for where drivers are permitted to go.
“There’s nothing that like, tells you, ‘OK this is as far as cars can go, towards the beach,'” according to him. “There’s nothing.”
The driver declined to speak publicly, but her husband told FOX 35 that the woman is “devastated” and agrees with Janey that better beach demarcation is required.
Fox News Digital has contacted the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office for comment.
