A Florida woman hit a sheriff on her bicycle, leaving him with a broken bone in the leg – because she was shopping on Amazon while driving, officials said.
Paige Bergman, 20, was arrested at her home in Deltona on Friday morning after a collision in a Hyundai Sonata that injured Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood while he was riding his bike on Thursday afternoon in Port Orange, the police said.
Bergman, who was accused of leaving the scene of an accident involving serious bodily injury, was driving an absent-minded brown sedan when she drove to the sheriff, Chitwood said.
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said that Paige Bergman, shown here, was shopping on Amazon on her phone when she hit him.
(Port Orange Police Department)
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“She said she was shopping on Amazon over the phone when she hit me,” said Chitwood on Facebook. “Please let this be a warning to turn off your phones while you are driving, before you kill someone.”
Chitwood said he believed Bergman “had no intention” of running him over, but that someone else could have been hurt more seriously if he had been hit.
“Imagine if it was a child or an elderly person on that bicycle, or if the car veered a few inches to the right,” said Chitwood.
A 3-minute video posted by the sheriff shows a man driving a garbage truck towards Chitwood after the accident. The footage then cuts to a police officer arriving at the woman’s home, where she was taken into custody. Bergman can be heard saying that she previously “hit a mailbox”, shows a video.
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“She didn’t hit a mailbox; do you want to know what she hit?” the deputy asks a man who is believed to be Bergman’s grandfather. “Uh, Mike Chitwood, the sheriff.”
“Was he on a bicycle?” the man asks.
“Yes, he was – and she didn’t stop,” replied the officer. “So that is the reason why we are here.”
Chitwood tweeted a video of himself being treated at a hospital on Thursday, saying he had just got on his bike for a 20-mile ride after returning from work.
“And the next thing I know, boy, I was hit and hit hard from the rear,” recalled the sheriff. “I fly off the bike and all I can say is that it was a burgundy car because the mirror was impaled on my back.”
Chitwood, 57, had an ugly abrasion on his back after being run over, a second video he posted. He also needed some stitches and had a fibular fracture that doctors think will heal on his own, he said.
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“I consider myself lucky to be up today,” said Chitwood.
The recovering sheriff, however, is expected to return to work on Friday, a spokesman for the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office told the Post.
This story first appeared in the New York Post.