A horrific hit-and-run was captured on video in Texas. As disturbing as it is to watch, the details that have emerged following the driver’s arrest, including eye-witness accounts, make it all the more terrible.
Six days after a graphic hit-and-run was captured on surveillance video in Austin, Texas, Pablo Antonio Avila-Banagas was arrested for the horrific crime, which saw a wheelchair-bound man mowed down, run over, and even dragged by the suspect’s truck. According to CBS Austin, the crash occurred on a Saturday morning, just before 10 am, as Rogelio De Luna attempted to cross a parking lot in his electric wheelchair. Sadly, he wouldn’t make it to his destination.
As seen in the horrific footage of the hit-and-run, De Luna was crossing the parking lot at a shopping plaza off North Lamar Blvd and Rundberg Lane in North Austin when he noticed a truck driving recklessly. He signaled for the driver to slow down, waving at the driver to watch out, but the truck drove over him instead.
“It’s terrible. It looks to me as if he intentionally ran him over,” said Troy Mitchell, who owns a business nearby. “It’s like he swerved into the guy and the question is what are they going to do about it?”
After running over the victim, leaving him motionless on the ground and his wheelchair apparently destroyed, the driver then made a right-hand turn out of the parking lot and took off, almost striking a telephone pole, driving over the sidewalk, and nearly colliding with another vehicle as it fled the area. Meanwhile, his victim was left for dead. Thankfully, however, a passing fire truck stops to render aid.
“It happened so fast. The fire truck was right there as it happened. He ended up taking the wheelchair underneath his truck going around the sidewalk trying to get the wheelchair off and then he just fled the scene,” recalled an eyewitness, who wanted to remain anonymous.
After watching the video footage, it’s hard to disagree with the witnesses’ assessments. The “accident” most definitely appeared avoidable. The “video also appears to show the motorist gradually veering left into the path of the wheelchair-bound victim; the angle of the pickup truck’s passenger-side front corner seems to change, according to the below succession of video screenshots,” captured by The Blaze:
Making matters worse, the “man” behind the wheel, identified as Pablo Antonio Avila-Banagas, was just 17 years old. He was arrested and booked into Travis County Jail, charged with failure to stop and render aid (serious bodily injury), which is a third-degree felony; injury to a disabled person, a second-degree felony; unlawful carry of a weapon (firearm), a Class A misdemeanor; and failure to identify in relation to this case, a Class B misdemeanor, KVUE reported.
As for De Luna, he said he’s thankful and feels blessed to be alive after being left with serious, life-threatening injuries, including a cracked skull and brain bleed, a fractured pelvis, lacerations to his head, and other facial injuries, according to court documents.
“I saw the video and I thank god,” De Luna told CBS Austin. “As far as I remember, I went through the parking area of La Michoacana and now I don’t remember until I saw the video.”
Others definitely agreed that De Luna was lucky to be alive. “I thought he was dead. I don’t know how he survived it,” Mitchell said. Shockingly, this wasn’t a first for De Luna, who was involved in another hit-and-run in the same area a little over a year before this crash. Unlike this case, that driver wasn’t found. Although De Luna said he wishes the driver no harm, he does want to see him be held accountable for his actions.
There is one part of this story that does restore some faith in humanity. After being left without an electric wheelchair that his family bought for him to get around, members of the community stepped up. After noticing that Pablo Antonio Avila-Banagas had a logo on the back window of his truck for the Clave Privada Car and Truck Club, the club set up a Go Fund Me to help De Luna with his medical expenses. In just one day, nearly $2,000 was raised.
