JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Evanni Valmyr, a 21-year-old junior at the University of North Florida, spoke only with Action News Jax about being hit by a car that then took off as she was walking to the bus stop late last week.
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She tells Action News Jax’s Finn Carlin she’ll be spending the next few months bound to a wheelchair after breaking bones in her leg.
“It’s very hard to sleep at night because of the pain,” Valmyr said, “I’m screaming, I’m crying, I can’t get a single ounce of relief unless the nurse brings me pain medication.”
Action News Jax got the hit-and-run crash report from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, which says it happened right around 7:00 AM last Thursday as Valmyr was crossing Atlantic Boulevard to get to her bus stop on Acme Street, in Arlington. She tells Action News Jax she takes that bus every morning to get to UNF’s campus. But, this time, she remembers a white pickup truck hitting her before she could get to the other side of the road.
“I felt something hard, like, collide with me, and then I didn’t feel nothing. Then I crashed down to the ground,” said Valmyr, “I started screaming because I couldn’t feel my legs, screaming “I can’t feel my legs! I can’t feel my legs!”
The crash report says it was a dark-colored sedan that hit Valmyr, which police say then kept driving down Atlantic Boulevard without stopping. No driver has yet been identified and no arrests have yet been made.
Valmyr remembers lying on the ground for what felt like minutes, not being able to move and wondering if she had been paralyzed. She tells Action News Jax the scariest part of the crash wasn’t getting knocked down by the car, but not knowing if she would be able to get back up.
“There were cars passing by me, I thought I was going to get hit again and lose my life. I kept screaming for help and no one would help me,” Valmyr said.
Valmyr says a few workers at a nearby security company ended up running to her side and helping her out. She says they were with the Spears Security Solutions company, whose building is about a block away from the site of the crash. The company wasn’t able to speak with Action News Jax, but told us their workers did help Valmyr after the crash.
Valmyr tells Action News Jax she now has staples in her leg from the knee down and the days since the crash have been nothing but painful. Her hope now is that the person responsible is held accountable.
“Once they did hit me, I feel like they should have stopped and not ran away,” said Valmyr.
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