Officers search for hit and run suspect

SARASOTA - The Florida Highway Patrol is searching for a hit and run driver who left a teenage circus performer seriously injured. Tteven Delmonte is a fourth generation performer. The 15-year-old from Myakka and his family tour the country performing in shows. Delmonte was bound for Houston this week. Instead, he's bound to a hospital bed.

"I looked up and I saw him coming straight towards me," Delmonte told FOX13. I swerved over to try to get away from it, but the trailer caught me."

Delmonte and his cousin were riding their bikes west on Fruitville Road near Coburn Road Saturday at around 9:45 p.m. They say they saw a white van pulling a black flatbed trailer east. Moments later, Delmonte was on the ground.

"I think he was trying to scare my cousin, but he got a little too close and clipped him with the trailer," said Delmonte's cousin, Tyler Burke.

The driver of the van kept going and now the FHP is looking for the driver and anyone who saw what happened.

Meanwhile, at All Children's Hospital, Delmonte endured six hours of surgery Sunday.

"He had multiple injuries, including a broken clavicle, which is your collar bone, broken top rib, and his femur was broken and he had massive ankle injury," his mother, Lyne Delmonte, said.

She says her son's foot was almost severed. Delmonte fears the injuries could end her son's circus career. The family already struggles to find consistent circus work in this economy.

Delmonte started performing at seven years old. He dreams of getting to Ringling Brothers, like his father and grandparents. But first, he faces physical rehab and hopefully recovery.

Delmonte thinks the driver was fooling around and went too far.

"What I think happened was he was trying to scare me or something to get out of the road or whatever, but I was all the way on the grass. I was a good 10 feet from the concrete," he told FOX13. There is no sidewalk on that stretch of Fruitville Road.

"Somebody knows who hit my son and we really need to know who this is," Delmonte said.

Now, she’s not only worried about her son, but also about how she and her family are going to pay the hospital bills because Delmonte doesn’t have health insurance.

If you know anything about the crash, call the Florida Highway Patrol at 866-833-2715.