By james art 
MIAMI SPRINGS, FL. – A man hit a construction worker over the weekend in Miami Springs, leaving him writhing in pain on the ground until a passing police officer stopped to help, authorities said. They said he shouldn’t have been driving in the first place – and now he’s facing charges.
According to an arrest report, a Miami Springs police officer responding to another call saw the worker lying on the sidewalk in the 500 block of East Drive around 12:50 a.m. Sunday.
He was “screaming in pain” and “begging for help,” authorities said. He told police he was grabbing equipment from his truck when he saw a Ford F-150 coming toward him at a “high rate of speed.”
Authorities said the driver, later identified as Elquis Rivero, 45, of Hialeah, struck the victim’s left leg, breaking it, and the front passenger’s side mirror struck him in the torso, causing him to broke.
Medics took the worker to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s trauma center in serious condition.
Shortly after Miami Springs police sent out a search warrant, Hialeah police called to inform them that officers had stopped an F-150 in the 500 block of East 23rd Street “for a two-vehicle hit and run” , the report states.
The pickup had a “missing front right passenger side mirror and heavy damage to the front end of the vehicle,” it said.
Police said Rivero told them he had dinner at the Pato Tipico restaurant on Northwest 36th Street, about two blocks south of the crash site, and was driving north on East Drive, but did not remember hitting the victim.
Two additional statements were redacted from the publicly released arrest report.
Rivero was booked into Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center Monday morning, facing charges of leaving the scene of an accident causing serious bodily injury, knowingly driving with a suspended license and driving with a license more than six months expired.
The Cuban national’s bond was listed as “to be determined” in online jail records as of Monday afternoon.
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