Police have arrested the woman who they say crashed into a good Samaritan helping a stranded motorist in Fort Lauderdale months ago, causing life-altering injuries, before she fled the scene.
Now, 29-year-old Tydaijah Sade Lashone Murray is behind bars, accused of leaving the scene of a crash with serious bodily injury and other charges.
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WATCH HEREThe incident happened just after midnight back on Aug. 11 when the victim, Yevhenii Arsirii, saw someone pushing a truck in the 2300 block of Northwest 6th Street. He pulled over and learned the driver ran out of gas, so he got out to help push.
“We were pushing and talking about love and compassion and then everything happened,” Arsirii told NBC6 back in August.
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Moments later, another driver hit Arsirii, another good Samaritan, and the truck from behind. Fort Lauderdale Police said that driver got out of her car and walked away.
News of her arrest brought some relief to Arsirii, who spoke to NBC6 Thursday. He recalled how the crash happened.
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"I felt that something hit me from behind really hard... I looked at my legs. And then I couldn't feel my legs. And there was a lot of blood," he said. "I was in shock... And then I saw this woman came out of the car. And she said, 'Oh, my God, what am I supposed to do now?'"
He said if he could, he would tell her how his life has changed since the hit-and-run.
"I would tell everything how I feel… how it feels to get up and sit in the wheelchair. How it feels to get in the hospital and having my arms poked all the time. And how it feels to go to the shower and sit on the bench," he said. "It's hard to describe how it's changed my life. It's like now, it's completely different."
Arsirii said he had a very active lifestyle before the crash.
"And now I'm like a turtle, like a turtle going very slowly everywhere," he said. "[If she had stayed], maybe it would be different outcome for her, but not for me."
His focus now is on his recovery, treating an infection that has come on his remaining leg, and trying to "cope and move on."
"[The burden] doesn't ease," Arsirii said. "You just learn how to live with it. You cry it on and then you get used to it and then you move forward."
