On Oct. 20, 2024, Jessica Buheit's life was changed forever. Cape Coral police say Buheit was hit while riding her scooter near Cape Coral Parkway. A witness told police they saw a black SUV or truck with a topper hit her while they turned right on Skyline Boulevard.
Buheit doesn't remember much of anything besides being scared and confused.
"I can remember seeing the street lights and feet surrounding by me and thinking, ‘Why am I in the middle of the street?'” Buheit said.
Buheit spent weeks in the hospital with a broken pelvic bone, hyper-extended arm, and head trauma. Four months later, she is still in a wheelchair and hasn't been able to work since the incident. Worst of all, she says, no one has been held accountable.
"I don’t understand why someone would just leave me out in the street," Buheit said. "They didn’t even check to see if I'm OK or anything."
As the population of Cape Coral grows, Cape Coral Police Department spokesperson Lisa Greenberg says hit-and-runs are increasing.
"It's not necessarily that the problem itself is growing, but as Cape Coral becomes a larger city, there are more people on the roads, and there's more likelihood of these types of things happening," Greenberg said.
Greenberg said people commit hit-and-runs for a number of reasons. At the top of the list is uninsured drivers, which Florida is especially high in.
“Every driver is paying more for their auto insurance because of such a high rate of uninsured motorists in Florida," said Mark Friedlander, the Florida spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute. "The current uninsured motorist rate in Florida is 15.9%. That's one out of six drivers. That is the 15th highest in the U.S."
While we may not know why someone left Buheit for dead, we do know that CCPD is not giving up on their case. If you have any information, you're urged to give them a call at 239-574-3223.
“Most of the time, these cases are able to be solved because someone leaves some sort of evidence behind, whether it’s a paint transfer, whether there’s video footage or anything like that, most of the time they are solvable, but any information helps,” Greenberg said.