‘Fighting for her life:’ JSO searching for driver who hit a teen and drove off in far west Duval

Tonight, police are searching for the driver who hit a teenager and drove off. Now, a Lake City family is pleading for answers, as 19-year-old Brookelynn Rose fights for her life.

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“She’s only a 19-year-old little girl, and she’s in the neuro ICU for someone not paying attention,” Rose’s sister Alexis Partridge said.

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From her helmet to her gloves, Rose’s family says she was taking all the safety precautions.

She travels from Gainesville to Jacksonville Beach every day for work. And Rose was on her way home when a driver hit her and drove off, in the middle of the day.

“I don’t understand how, as a human being, you hit somebody, run them over and just leave like they were piece of garbage on the side of the road,” Rose’s mom Lucretia Diaz said.

Rose’s mom and sister were frantic making phone calls when they didn’t hear from her for several hours.

Monday around 3 p.m., she was riding her motorcycle home from work when….

“We got a text message that her life 360 hadn’t moved since 317 and it was about six o’clock,” Diaz said.

The JSO crash report says the truck hit her on US Highway 301 and Gilridge Rd, in far west Duval.

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Rose was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Diaz says she multiple injuries including swelling to her brain.

“She’s in there fighting for her life,” Diaz said. “She’s they have paralyzed her so she can’t move. She’s unconscious. She can’t speak. She’s got a monitor on her brain because the swelling won’t go down. She’s got breaks in her back, breaks in her spine. She had surgery on her stomach. She’s got a laceration on her spleen, and she had surgery on her leg because she broke her femur bone, so now she has a rod in her leg.”

Now, while she is recovering, her family is looking for answers.

“They had two witnesses that came forward that said the back tires of the tractor trailer ran her over after he hit her and she was thrown off the bike,” Partridge said.

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Partridge says the driver was in a sod truck. And the crash report says she was going 45 miles an hour.

“So, she was not speeding, and the sod truck was coming out of the sod farm and trying to cut through the intersection and didn’t see her,” Partridge said.

They say it’s a miracle she’s alive, and they hope she makes it through.

“Her job is to rest and get better, and our job is to get him,” Diaz said.

Diaz says JSO detectives are still searching for the driver responsible.

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