An Orange County firefighter was arrested after a bar fight that led to another firefighter being run over, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
Edward Negron was arrested and charged with battery after the fight in Jacksonville on Sept. 8, as Hurricane Irma approached.
According to FHP, Clay County fireman John Taylor got into a fight with Negron, who was in the back seat of a pickup truck and tried to punch Taylor through the window.
Troopers said Taylor then jumped on the running bar of the truck and tried to punch Negron through the window when he fell off the truck and was run over by the back wheel.
Taylor is still fighting for his life two weeks after the accident, his friend Troy Alward said. He’s suffered a broken pelvis, legs and ribs. He’s also contracted pneumonia.
“When he was first brought in they told his wife that he had a 50/50 chance of making it,” said Alward.
Taylor was playing a gig with his band, the John Taylor Band, at the Dalton’s Sports Grill in Clay County.
After Taylor had been run over, the driver of the pickup truck, Robert Hood, took off, according to the FHP report.
Some of the passengers told Hood to stop, but Jacksonville firefighter Todd Hardin yelled for Hood to “Go, go, go!”
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FHP eventually caught up with and stopped the vehicle. Troopers said, “At no time did the first responders make a call to 911” to get help for Taylor.
Hood and Hardin were arrested for their involvement.
Alward said he still has no idea how something like this happened.
“You get some people acting a fool when they are out and things just escalated very quickly,” he said. “That's the only way I can explain it."
Cox Media Group
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