Scooter driver on life support after crash; no ID for passenger who died
DEERFIELD BEACH Two days after they were rear-ended in Deerfield Beach, a scooter driver is on life support and his female passenger is dead and unknown — detectives have been unable to identify her.
The impact of the crash on Sunday violently threw Giuseppe Daal and his passenger from the scooter on Northeast 48th Street, a couple blocks west of Dixie Highway, and sent the scooter sailing into the opposite lanes, the Broward Sheriff ’s Office said.
Brandon Butler, the driver of the car that rearended them told investigators he did not see the scooter in front of him when he hit it at 1:25 a.m., a sheriff’s spokeswoman said.
The 37-year-old Coconut Creek man was not injured and remained at the scene, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Daal is in the intensivecare unit at Broward Health North in Deerfield Beach with severe head, chest and lung injuries and spleen damage, his ex-wife, Melissa Daal, said Tuesday night.
A doctor told her that it wouldn’t be necessary to quit life support because Daal would likely die on his own, she said.
“It was going to be yesterday, but Giuseppe is a very stubborn man,” Melissa Daal said.
The couple, divorced five years ago after 12 years of marriage, have an autistic 11-year-old son, Gabriel, Melissa Daal said.
Despite their divorce, the couple lived near one another and Daal had frequent contact with their son.
“He was a troubled man, but he loved his child very, very much,” she said.
The 53-year-old was originally from Aruba. His brother and sister flew to Miami on Tuesday night in hopes of seeing their brother before he died, said Melissa Daal, also 53.
As for Daal’s passenger, she remains a Jane Doe.
“I don’t know who the woman was,” Melissa Daal said.
According to detectives, the woman was blonde, in her late 50s or early 60s, rough and haggard looking and extremely thin, Melissa Daal said. She was pronounced dead at the hospital Sunday.
When investigators showed up at Melissa Daal’s apartment early Sunday morning to notify her about her ex-husband’s crash, they had a picture of her driver license.
“They thought that I was the passenger,” Melissa Daal said. “They thought it was me.”
It wasn’t
Daal’s first serious scooter crash.
In August, another scooter he was riding was totaled when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver on Dixie Highway in Oakland Park, Melissa Daal said.
“This is such a lousy story,” she said. “That previous scooter was destroyed. And this one was too.”
Sunday’s crash site was not far from where Daal rented a room.
Daal sometimes worked in construction at Trojan Labor but most recently had been working as a server at Umberto’s of Pompano Beach, an Italian restaurant at 2780 E. Atlantic Blvd., his ex-wife said.
Melissa Daal said she last saw her ex at about 10:30 p.m. Sunday. He stopped by after work to give her money for their son.
Giuseppe Daal was having a conversation in Spanish with someone on his cellphone while he was there, she said.
His plan was to go home and get some sleep. He had to work the next day. Three hours later the crash happened.