HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – A South Florida woman is on the road to recovery after she was seriously injured in a crash last month in Hollywood.
“You’re just sitting down at dinner. We were sitting down and then, bam, it just hits us -- the car,” Marcelo Santolalla said.
Santolalla and his fiancé Ana Verasetgui were having dinner outside in Hollywood on Nov. 2 when their lives were changed forever.
“I was in the incident and I was thrown away 10 feet. And then you see the love of your life screaming in pain,” Santolalla said. “I was in shock and denial. I was holding her legs and waiting for help.”
Verasetgui would lose the lower part of both of her legs due to the incident.
“If I was 10 inches to the right or she was 10 inches to the left, the car would have pinned us and we would both be dead,” Santolalla said.
According to the Hollywood Police Department’s crash report, the driver of the car that went on to the curb is Shana Soto.
The report says blood was taken to test for alcohol and, at this point, there have been no charges filed.
It goes on to say Soto swerved past a Hollywood fire truck, striking the curb and driving onto the sidewalk where it collided with the three pedestrians.
“What happened here was awful. I know you’re living your life and then suddenly everything changes forever,” Santolalla said.
Verasetgui has been going through rehabilitation daily and is always seen with a therapy dog by her side.
The goal now is to get Verasetgui’s extended family from Peru to South Florida to help with the long road of recovery ahead.
“You have all these plans and everything changes in a second, and you don’t know what’s going to come next,” Santolalla said.
A GoFundMe page has been created to help Verasetgui bring her family to South Florida and other expenses.