Victim in downtown Minneapolis hit-and-run says police haven’t contacted him about crash

MINNEAPOLIS — The victim of a violent hit-and-run crash last month is out of the hospital and says he hasn’t watched the security footage of what happened.

“It was just green light, and yeah, that’s literally all I remember,” said Carl Vargas.

Vargas was tossed through the air like a rag doll in downtown Minneapolis when another vehicle blew through a red light and T-boned him.

“Everyone who’s seen the video and come to see me and talk about it, they are just like, eyes wide, ‘You are a lucky man,’” he said.

After the crash, the video shows two people getting out of the car and into another car that had been trailing behind. They drove off.

Vargas still can’t walk. Much of his daily life is a struggle.

“My ankle was completely destroyed,” Vargas said. “I had several head injuries like a skull fracture and a ruptured eardrum.”

Adding insult to the injuries, someone on the street stole Vargas’s phone and wallet while he was lying unconscious.

“Everything was lining up: school, got the job, got the bike, got the new place and then — life isn’t meant to be perfect,” he said.

Vargas says the crash has changed his perspective on life and he’s very grateful he wasn’t hurt worse.

He’s also not too concerned about catching the people who hit him and stole his wallet.

“Why am I even worried about it or thinking about it because who knows where they are?” Vargas said. “Who knows what they are? Who knows what I would even get if they were caught?”

Still, he says Minneapolis police haven’t talked to him once, and it was his family who canvassed the area to secure the surveillance videos.

WCCO asked the Minneapolis Police Department for an update on the case Tuesday and didn’t hear back.

Vargas says he plans to get back on the bike, and his focus is his health and school, which he returned to this week.

“That’s what everybody points out, ‘The people who did this, they have stuff coming to them,’ and I’d rather just know I was doing good, I’m still doing good,” he said. “That good has to come around eventually.”

Vargas says he hopes to be walking again in mid-October.