A 93-year-old Ocala woman with an expired driver’s license was arrested Wednesday after a hit-and-run incident left a pedestrian hospitalized.
Jeanine C. Bergh, a resident of Foxwood Farms, later told a Florida Highway Patrol trooper that she left the accident scene because she didn’t want to be late for an appointment. She said the incident happened because the sun was in her eyes and she didn’t see the man, who was operating a leaf blower along the side of NW 20th Street, an FHP report states.
After striking the man who had stopped operating the leaf blower while waiting for Bergh to pass by, she got out of the car, said she didn’t see him and then drove away, the report says.
After interviewing the injured man at Ocala Regional Medical Center, the trooper returned to the Foxwood Farms office to continue his investigation. He watched surveillance footage of the incident and noted that the car involved was a Mercury sedan with a damaged passenger side mirror that was dangling on the side of the vehicle.
Foxwood Farms employees told the trooper that Bergh was the woman driving the Lincoln and gave him her address. But before he could go to her house, Bergh stopped by the office and the trooper recognized her car from the surveillance video.
The trooper continued the investigation at Bergh’s home on NW 20th Street, where she was taken into custody. The trooper noted that she “was very open to talking and approached me as soon as she returned to the neighborhood.”
Bergh was booked into the Marion County Jail at 2:11 p.m. Wednesday and charged with hit and run/failing to stop at a crash involving injury. She was released on $5,000 bond two and a half hours later.
Bergh’s court date hadn’t been set at the time of her release from jail.
