BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. – A Broward County woman is accused of striking a cyclist with her pickup truck near her home in the unincorporated Broadview Park area and continuing to drive on Saturday, leaving the man behind with multiple serious injuries.
Nanci Villatoro Cruz, 44, is now facing an assortment of charges.
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According to an arrest report from the Broward Sheriff’s Office, the crash happened just after 7:30 p.m. in the 4100 block of Southwest 21st Street.
Deputies said Villatoro Cruz, driving a Nissan Frontier, was driving west and crossed over into oncoming traffic, striking the cyclist.
Medics took him to Broward Health Medical Center, where doctors determined he suffered a broken leg, four broken ribs, a lung bleed and facial lacerations, a BSO arrest report states. He required a stay in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
Meanwhile, with the victim’s Schwinn mountain bike “still trapped underneath her vehicle,” deputies said Villatoro Cruz kept on driving to her home in the 1800 block of Gardenia Road.
A witness was able to describe Villatoro Cruz and her vehicle and deputies were able to find her, the report states.
Authorities said she had bloodshot eyes, was unsteady on her feet and had a “strong odor” of alcohol on her breath. They said she failed a battery of field sobriety tests.
Deputies said while a breath test gave her a blood alcohol content at around .06% ― under the legal limit ― about two hours after the crash, her “normal faculties were impaired beyond the ability to safely operate a vehicle” and they had her submit a urine sample as her “impairment signs were not indicative of the breath test results.”
They arrested Villatoro Cruz, a Mexican national, on charges including DUI causing serious bodily injury and leaving the scene of a crash causing serious bodily injury.
As of Monday, she remained at BSO’s Paul Rein Detention Facility on a bond of more than $60,000 and an immigration hold.