PENSACOLA -- A man cut in half at the waist when he was run over by a semitrailer truck Thursday lived more than three hours before dying in a hospital.

Herbert Lee Grossman, 59, of Quitman, Texas, was crushed about 10 a.m. while walking in a truck stop parking lot. The truck, which was moving at less than 5 mph, was pulling out of a parking space.

"We got the call as a signal seven (dead person), and then a few minutes later, I heard (paramedics) saying, "We've got breath,' " said Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Melissa Pestana.

Grossman raised his arms to the paramedics, who airlifted his upper body to West Florida Regional Medical Center by helicopter, while an ambulance carried his lower body.

He was pronounced dead at 1:32 p.m.

The driver of the truck, Eddie Patterson, 55, of Lake Providence, La., had been talking to Grossman moments before moving his truck. The two had been checking Grossman's truck.

"The driver said he rolled out, looked in his rearview mirror and all he saw was legs," said truck driver Don Leggett, 53. "He just figured there would be a body attached. If you're cut in half, wouldn't you die instantly?"

Patterson was not charged, Pestana said, calling the event a "freak accident."

Police: Camera catches abusive nanny

BOCA RATON -- A nanny was caught on a hidden camera jerking and shaking a year-old girl by the arm, police said.

Priscilla Izurieta, 27, of Pompano Beach, has been charged with battery and culpable negligence over the Jan. 29 incident. According to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, the baby's father reported Izurieta after the video camera he had hidden in the family's home recorded the nanny tossing the infant on the sofa with "excessive force while changing her diaper."

The report also says the video shows Izurieta shaking the baby's arm "with vigor" when the child tried to touch a toy while her diaper was being changed, and later yanking the baby out of her highchair by her arms, causing the baby to cry.

When detectives interviewed Izurieta, she "admitted she was in fact too rough with (the child) while changing the diaper and that she did probably hurt the baby," though not intending to.

"She said these incidences all occurred on the one bad day that she had," the report said.

The infant suffered no severe injuries.

Izurieta is charged with battery, a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine, and culpable negligence, a second-degree misdemeanor that carries up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk