Victor Crist, former Florida legislator, in the hospital after car crash

Former state legislator and county commissioner Victor Crist was feeling upbeat as he left a political candidate forum Thursday night in northwestern Hillsborough County. A seasoned elected official, Crist is running to be the county’s clerk of court. Several hundred people, he later said, poured into the event hosted by a local civic association.

He said he wrapped his hands around his steering wheel and looked both ways. He saw nothing. He pulled out onto Gunn Highway, a dark two-lane road slicing through farmland and subdivisions.

“All of a sudden, bam,” Crist, 67, told the Tampa Bay Times from his hospital bed in the intensive care unit at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa Saturday morning.

The crash left him with a concussion, a punctured lung and broken ribs, he said.

“Trump isn’t going to be the only one with a bandage on his head this campaign season,” Crist said.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office responded to the crash just before 9:15 p.m., a department spokesperson confirmed. They were unable to provide the names of the drivers involved, but said just one person — which the Times confirmed to be Crist — was transported to the hospital.

Crist expects to be moved out of intensive care Saturday and to be discharged Monday, he told the Times.

The Hillsborough Republican spent a decades in the Florida Senate, eight years in the the Florida House of Representatives and eight years on the county commission until 2018.

Now he is is vying to be the Hillsborough Clerk of Circuit Court and Comptroller, the county’s official record-keeper responsible for maintaining everything from court and marriage records to overseeing audits of county operations. He is running against Democratic incumbent Cindy Stuart, elected in 2020, and faces retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Melony Williams in the Republican primary.

Thursday’s candidate forum was hosted by the Keystone Civic Association at a branch of the American Legion in the 17800 block of Gunn Highway.

Crist remembers a crowd forming around his car following the crash but little else. No one else was inside his vehicle, he said. He does not recall anything about the other vehicle involved but said he was told by a law enforcement officer that the other driver was handed a citation.

Crist was first taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital North in Lutz where he had X-rays and an MRI. He was transferred to the trauma unit at St. Joseph’s on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, where he received additional X-rays and tests.

“As far as campaigning goes, I’ve been directing things from here,” he said. From his hospital bed he’s managed to place fundraising calls to friends and family.

His wife, Angela, and his campaign coordinators are attending events this week on his behalf.

“I’m too sore to jump right back on the campaign trail,” he said. “But every day I’m getting better.”

For the time being, he is resting and wondering about the other driver involved.

“I’d like to know what happened to them,” he said. “Are they okay?”

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