By Olivia Land and Jennie Taer – NY Post
A Venezuelan migrant driving for Amazon smashed into a Florida mom who was pushing her 4-month-old infant in a stroller — causing the young mother “catastrophic” injuries and throwing the baby into the street, according to cops and video from the scene.
The mom, who has not been named publicly, was walking in the Ives Estates community outside Miami with her infant and the family dog on a leash when they were allegedly struck by Sarahy Parra-Ovalles last Thursday, according to the horrifying footage obtained by The Post.
The mother was dragged onto the front of the car, the home surveillance video showed.
The driver stopped her car and got out long enough to prop the stroller back up and put the baby in the seat — and then fled.
She left “the baby alone in the middle of the intersection and the mom bleeding from her skull,” the family’s lawyer Judd Rosen told The Post Tuesday.
A few days after the wreck, the mom was home recovering from “a catastrophic brain injury, a broken skull and a brain bleed,” Rosen said.
The young woman was forced to pump breastmilk from her ICU bed over the weekend, which her husband then rushed home to the baby, who was luckily unharmed, Rosen said.
“This is one of the worst and most graphic videos as a parent that I have ever seen,” he said of the hit-and-run.
Parra-Ovalles, 45, entered the US on a tourist visa in 2019, which expired in 2021, Homeland Security sources told The Post.
She was granted Temporary Protected Status in 2021, which allowed her apply for a work permit.
Parra-Ovalles was arrested Friday on charges of leaving the scene of a crash with serious bodily injury and leaving the scene of a crash without serious bodily injury, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department.
She was later released on bond.
Rosen’s client was “horrified” that Parra-Ovalles was allowed back on the streets so soon after what happened, he said.
“She was run down in broad daylight and left for dead, and within 24 hours of getting arrested, [the suspect is] back on the streets, potentially driving around. Where is the justice system when you need them?” he lamented.
Parra-Ovalles is no longer delivering for Amazon, a company spokesperson told The Post.
“This is a terrible incident and our thoughts are with this family. We’re looking into the matter and will support law enforcement as they investigate,” they said.
It was not immediately clear how long Parra-Ovalles was with the company — but she was subject to a background check as part of her hiring process, a company source added.
The terrifying hit-and-run was indicative of a larger problem with delivery and rideshare giants like Amazon and Uber, Rosen told The Post.
“They’ve sacrificed their safety and standards to increase the speed of delivery. And I’ve seen over the last months and years that the drivers they’re hiring are less and less qualified,” he claimed.
Rosen estimated that he received “dozens of calls” every couple months about dangerous incidents involving Amazon, Uber, or other ride and delivery services.
“Amazon has an army of delivery people invading the suburbs every day, and they put the profits of Jeff Bezos and the Amazon corporation over the safety of the moms and children walking around suburbs throughout America,” he insisted.
“These drivers are on a mission guided by the greed of Amazon to rush all deliveries.”
Parra-Ovalles had two prior driving infractions, including a 2019 failure stop sign violation and a 2020 careless driving incident, online records showed.
Both infractions were dismissed, though Rosen said Parra-Ovalles’ driving record was “100%” something they would bring up in any future lawsuits against Amazon.
“This is the last person they’d want driving around in the suburbs, and Amazon simply doesn’t care … all they care about is making money,” he told The Post.
Rosen — who was the lead counsel in the $1.2 billion lawsuit on behalf of the victims of the 2021 Surfside condo collapse — told The Post he was not intimidated by going up against a megaconglomerate like Amazon.
“These are familiar waters for me, and I know how to deal with billion-dollar companies and billion-dollar lawsuits. And the only thing that will change the behavior of Amazon will be financial losses and financial penalties for these types of actions,” he said.
He said there was “no amount of money” that could assuage the family’s trauma.