Skateboarder rolls out drive, collides with van

The driver turns herself in later and is accused of leaving the scene of an accident, where an 8-year-old was badly injured.

By MARY CARMICHAEL

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 21, 2000

NEW PORT RICHEY -- It was bound to happen, said the neighbors. The bushes on Tall Oak Lane are high and wide, obscuring drivers' views of the yards that line the street. Neighborhood kids love to skateboard on the quiet 30-mph street in the Oak Trail subdivision off State Road 54.

Witnesses said Zenaida Giambrone, 32, probably couldn't see 8-year-old Marc Cianci on Tuesday afternoon when he slid down his driveway on a skateboard, collided with Giambrone's van and ended up with bruises, scrapes and a partially amputated thumb.

But after hitting the child, witnesses said, Giambrone left the scene, which is a felony. "She just drove off," said witness Inge Pudimott. "She must have panicked."

Giambrone, 32, was being held at the Land O' Lakes Detention Center late Tuesday afternoon on $5,000 bail for leaving the scene of an accident with serious bodily injury.

Pudimott said she was in her yard, across from the Ciancis' house at 4329 Tall Oak Lane, when she saw a white Ford Aerostar coming slowly down the street from the north. It was heading toward the short, sloping driveway where Marc was skateboarding behind two bushes, she said.

The van was carrying Giambrone, her 4-year-old son, Frank, and her 2-year-old son, Tyler, according to a release from the Florida Highway Patrol.

Marc, riding a well-worn red-and-yellow skateboard, slid "straight into the road," Pudimott said, and Giambrone couldn't stop fast enough. "She hit the kid," Pudimott said, "and he got up and ran right into the house."

Then, Pudimott said, the van drove south, leaving behind a badly injured boy.

A spokesman for the Florida Highway Patrol said the end of Cianci's left thumb, about an inch from the tip, had been cut off.

Jeri Beahm's 10-year-old son Jessie Binder, a friend of Marc, found the tip of the boy's thumb lying in the street.

"They said, "Mom, Mom, come see what we found!' and I went over," Beahm said. "I was just sick to my stomach."

Cassandra Morrell, a spokeswoman for Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, said she was unsure whether the fingertip made it to the hospital with Marc.

He also suffered bruises "all over," said the FHP spokesman. Beahm added that the boy's knees were badly skinned. Marc took it well at first, she said, "but when he looked down at his hand, that's when he really went crazy."

Trooper Robert Carbon said the Florida Highway Patrol heard about the accident at 12:20 p.m. Paramedics from Pasco County Fire Rescue said they arrived shortly afterward.

Marc remained stable and alert throughout the day at Bayfront.

Meanwhile, troopers scoured the road for evidence. At 12:50 p.m., Giambrone called the police and said she wanted to turn herself in. Troopers brought her back to the scene with the van, a white 1994 Ford Aerostar Mark III with a Florida license plate that says, "Invest in Children." About 2 p.m., troopers put Giambrone in a patrol car. She was booked in Land O'Lakes late in the afternoon. While at the jail, Giambrone also was arrested on two 1998 charges of failure to appear in court for writing a worthless check and held on $513 bail for each of those counts.

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