Father Relieved Hit & Run Suspect Caught
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - A father talks about one of the scariest moments of his life when a driver struck his 8-year-old son in Coral Gables and fled the scene.
"It's four, five seconds as a parent that you never want to go through as a parent," said the boy's father, Miguel Ochoa.
Ochoa says he was out on a jog along a golf course with his son, Sebastian, in the 1100 block of South Greenway Drive on the evening of September 3rd. The third grader was on his bicycle.
"He got off his bike and he was looking at a sign that's posted on the golf course of a boy scout cabin," said Ochoa.
Ochoa said just as his son was pointing out the sign to him, he noticed a vehicle.
"The car drove off the road. Sebastian was on the golf course and the car drove off the road and I yelled at him to be careful because I was a good 20 yards away from him," said Ochoa. "He cut back out onto the roadway and hit him with the corner of the fender."
Little Sebastian was rushed to Nicklaus Children's Hospital.
"He had a left femur fracture. He's had two rods put in his thigh and it's about a three month recovery," said Ochoa.
More than a week after the hit and run, Coral Gables police arrested Dennis Cerrato. The 19-year-old appeared in bond court following his arrest Thursday.
Ochoa is grateful his son is on his way to recovery and thankful to those who helped bring the person police believe is responsible to justice.
"The City of Coral Gables, the detectives, they did a wonderful job. The witnesses, a team of bikers that bikes around Greenway Drive where the accident took place, did a good job of identifying the car," said Ochoa.
Cerrato is charged with leaving the scene of a crash involving serious bodily injury.