Hit and run driver injures cyclist

An early morning hit and run in Belize City has left a cyclist in the hospital and a driver under arrest. News 5’s Jacqueline Woods reports from a busy, troublesome intersection.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

“I did not know I knocked down someone.” That is what police say eighteen-year-old Michael Heusner told them after he hit Jose Cardosa and did not stop to help the forty-five year old watchman. Shortly after six this morning Cardosa was knocked off his bicycle at the Cinderella Plaza intersection and suffered a head injury. Heusner, who was driving a small blue car with taxi license plates, did not stop, but continued on his way…leaving a semi conscious Cardosa lying in the middle of the street. According to Roy “Bullet” Craig, a taxi driver from the area, the car was making a right turn when the accident occurred.

Roy “Bullet” Craig, Witness

“When he knocked him down, there was a BERT personnel here that live right here in the neighbourhood and she do respiratory service to him and kept him alive. She even used my pen to scratch his foot bottom and kept him alive. But what got me triggered off is because the guy did not stop to render service, and again, what got me triggered off is that he was bleeding from the head. You know a lot of blood was coming from his head and I feared he had some concussion.”

Jacqueline Woods

“And the driver obviously must have known he had hit someone?”

Roy “Bullet” Craig

“To my knowledge, I think he knew he hit something.”

Late this morning, Heusner turned himself into police and he has been charged with driving without due care and attention, failure to render aid and negligent grievous harm. Police say Heusner had borrowed the vehicle from his father. Jacqueline Woods for News 5.

Cardosa remains in the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital in a stable condition.