By Dan Harkins

For Hometown News

VOLUSIA COUNTY - Last Friday, Brian Teeters was finally having the tubes removed for his release from Halifax Health Medical Center after eight days of reconstructive surgery to his battered right leg.

"It means you're really going home," a nurse told him.

He still doesn't know who to blame for his serious injury, which came at the hands of a hit and run driver. For all of his pain and suffering, though, Mr. Teeters, 24, is one of the lucky ones. Just this year, the Florida Highway Patrol has investigated 13 fatal hit-and-run accidents; only three have been solved.

Mr. Teeters was among the hundreds more who survive hit-and-run crashes, enduring trauma and time lost from school or work, only to keep on wondering if anyone will suffer for their suffering.

At dinnertime on Nov. 12, the 2003 Seabreeze High grad and Navy veteran had almost steered his motorcycle to Houligan's restaurant on Clyde Morris in Ormond Beach, where his father and brother were waiting, when the driver of a dark gray or blue Jeep Grand Cherokee pulled out from Coquina Point and left him nowhere to go: It was too late to brake effectively, a car blocked his way to the right, so Mr. Teeters tried the left.

"I smacked my right leg into his bumper," he said, from his bed in room 1626 at Halifax, a laptop perched in his lap. "It was far too late to do anything. My leg was pinned, then I just flipped up over the bike and car, did about two or three rolls and then I remember looking up and noticing that there wasn't any Jeep around any more."

The Jeep's driver left him bleeding in the middle of the road. He started screaming, "Get that person in the Jeep!" He tried to get up, and that's when he noticed that his leg had been mangled, despite the helmet, protective glove and adherence to the 40 mph speed-limit.

Mr. Teeters, who was allowed to withdraw late in the semester from classes at Daytona State College after the crash, endured three surgeries over the next eight days. A pin was placed in his thigh to stabilize a compound fracture. Then spare muscle was used to plug a hole. Then a skin graft. It'll be a four-to-six-month recovery, not exactly fun for someone who's worked since he was a teen as a Volusia County lifeguard.

"I just want whoever did this to confess," he said. "I mean, it's not going to happen maybe, but that would be kind of nice."

His mother, Lucie Teeters, says she's taken to craning her neck now whenever she sees a dark-colored Jeep pass by. From the other side of her son's bed, she says about the perpetrator, "He hasn't gotten away with it yet."

The Teeters family is offering an unspecified reward to the person responsible for information that leads to a conviction (call the Ormond Beach police department with tips).

Just this month, state troopers have looked into five new fatal hit-and-run crashes in Central Florida.

"That's very unusual to have five in such a short period of time," said Sgt. Kim Montes, spokeswoman for the Florida Highway Patrol.

Every day in Central Florida, Sgt. Montes, said, troopers investigate between 10 and 25 hit-and-run crashes - a level that has some troopers calling this an outbreak.

But it's not a new phenomenon. For decades, drivers have fled after crashes for four reasons, says Sgt. Montes: They're impaired, their license is suspended, they're wanted, or they don't have insurance.

The irony, said Sgt. Montes: "A lot of times the accident, which usually involves a pedestrian, isn't even (the driver's) fault, and had they stayed, except for the reasons they left in the first place, they wouldn't even be charged."

Once they leave, though, it's a first-degree felony, with up to 30 years in prison to face.

Sgt. Montes said hit and runs are a challenge for law enforcement.

"The worst case scenario is it happens at night with no witnesses," she said. "The best scenario is if we have the car, or, short of that, there are witnesses.

Any information helps, she said.

"Even if they only have a couple of letters from the tag, that helps immensely," she said.

And even after the accident, the public can help by being alert.

"If they see a neighbor whose car is damaged or covered - or not there," she said, "they should report that."