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Remember that time Rick Sanchez allegedly drove drunk, hit a pedestrian, and then left the scene for two hours?

Minutes after midnight on the morning of December 10, 1990, an intoxicated Smuzinick darted out in front of a Volvo on a residential street near Joe Robbie Stadium. The driver of the car, WSVN-TV Channel 7 anchorman Rick Sanchez, became the subject of a subsequent January 16 New Times story that described the odd circumstances of the accident. Sanchez, whom a Metro-Dade police officer said “smelled strongly of alcohol,” first stopped his car but then later left the scene. A blood test to determine Sanchez’s sobriety was not administered until an hour and fifteen minutes after the collision. Though Sanchez says he tried to aid Smuzinick at the scene of the accident and flag down motorists, eyewitnesses claim the anchorman ignored the injured man and loudly told police and bystanders that blood tests were pointless, and would hurt his public image.

Why did Sanchez leave the scene? To try to get the alcohol out of his system calm his nerves:

His attorney, Richard Essen, now says the anchorman returned home and had “a couple of drinks to calm his nerves” before returning to the scene. Essen doubts that Sanchez’s DUI charge will ever come to trial. “I think the results of the blood tests will be thrown out,” the lawyer says. “If the results of the blood tests are suppressed, then there is no evidence against him at all. The state cannot proceed.”

Sanchez offered ZERO financial aid, and did not even bother visiting the man he left paralyzed…

Though Smuzinick’s health insurance policy covers most of his medical costs, it doesn’t pay for rehabilitative care. Family members say unpaid bills for physical therapy now total about $81,000. To save money, they have removed Smuzinick from the clinic’s head-injury program. Using videotapes to learn therapy techniques, friends, relatives, and former co-workers have begun to provide a semblance of the rehabilitation program they can’t afford.

One friend of the family, Kelli Crist, has distributed flyers describing the accident involving Smuzinick and Sanchez. The flyers list Crist’s phone number (680-2741) and request donations to help pay for treatment and therapy. So far the fund-raising effort has not gone well.

“Nobody seems to be interested,” Crist says.

Smuzinick’s fiancee, Jackie Stringhill, says it’s just as well that Sanchez hasn’t paid a visit to Smuzinick since the accident. “I guess his attitude bothers a lot of people. But we have enough to think about. We have our hands full. We don’t really talk about the accident much any more. Anyway,” she adds resignedly, “as far as Sanchez goes, what goes around comes around.

Jeffrey Smuzinick died on November 2, 1995, largely due to the injuries he suffered in the accident.