FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Micah Mereus and Ziniyah Cruz recently welcomed their baby daughter, but what was supposed to be a joyful time turned into terror when they were the victims of a hit-and-run crash in Fort Lauderdale.
Mereus and Cruz said they were in pain and trapped in their car when the apologetic reckless driver approached them and asked that they not call the cops, before driving away.
“It literally felt like someone picked me up from my neck and just shook me,” Cruz said.
Mereus and Cruz said the hit-and-run driver’s plea was selfish and cruel. Mereus said he tried to reason with him to no avail.
“I was just trying to get him to understand that, ‘You have to stay!’ You know, I was trying to get him to understand that, ‘We just got in a car accident! There is no way I cannot call the police!’ This is big,” Mereus said.
The hit-and-run crash was shortly after 2:15 a.m., on Saturday near Southwest 31 Avenue and 17 Street.
Fire rescue personnel treated Cruz at the scene and took Mereus to the Broward Health Medical Center, according to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.
The reckless driver also struck two cars and ended in a home’s front yard where there was a surveillance camera.
“I saw the car going like crazy,” Argeri Sequeira, the homeowner, said about the surveillance video.
The driver had a passenger. Sequeira said the video shows them checking their car and one of them bleeding from the nose.
Local 10 News Senior Assignment Editor Frine Gomez contributed to this report.