VIDEO: Deputies order evacuations as brush fire sends thick smoke through Clay County<\/a><\/p>\nShe never made it home.<\/p>\n
When Engle didn\u2019t arrive as expected, her daughter checked the family\u2019s Life360 app and saw her mother\u2019s location stopped along the side of the road. Calls went unanswered.<\/p>\n
Thinking her mother may have pulled over to help someone \u2014 something relatives say was typical of her \u2014 Engle\u2019s daughter called her brother, a cadet with Martin County Fire Rescue, and asked him to check.<\/p>\n
Instead, he arrived at the crash scene just as his mother was being airlifted away.<\/p>\n
From nurse to patient<\/p>\n
Today, Engle is a quadriplegic. She has no feeling from the chest down. She can move her arms but has no sensation in her fingers and cannot care for herself independently.<\/p>\n
The woman who once worked long shifts caring for critically ill children \u2014 and spent her free time volunteering, gardening, weightlifting, and supporting her children \u2014 now spends her days in a bed or a wheelchair.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s the one who never sat still,\u201d her family said. \u201cNow she can\u2019t do anything for herself.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Rebecca](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/87669ef8-244d-416b-bd9a-42e02e9adb39-WPECPHOTOFORWEB1.jpg\"\/)
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Rebecca Engle, a 34-year veteran registered nurse and Stuart resident, was critically injured on the evening of Nov. 30 in a violent collision on SW Kanner Highway near SW Beverly Terrace in unincorporated Martin County. (Rebecca Engle)<\/p>\n
For the past four years, Engle worked as a pediatric ICU nurse at HCA Lawnwood Medical Center \u2014 the same hospital where she would later be treated as a patient.<\/p>\n
Doctors have classified her injury as an incomplete ASIA B spinal cord injury, meaning some sensation remains below the injury site, but movement is severely limited \u2014 a diagnosis Engle understands deeply given her medical background.<\/p>\n
Despite the severity of her injuries, her family says Engle remains determined.<\/p>\n
A woman of deep faith, she believes she will regain movement in her fingers and hopes one day to walk again.<\/p>\n
Her goals, they say, are simple but profound: to walk her children down the aisle and hold future grandchildren.<\/p>\n
Lawsuit filed, no arrest made<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Engle and her husband, Kevin, filed a civil lawsuit against Steven Herrera Valdez, the driver identified in the crash report.<\/p>\n
The complaint alleges negligence and claims, in a civil filing, that the driver was under the influence at the time of the collision.<\/p>\n
However, the FHP crash report shows no alcohol or drug testing was conducted, and suspected alcohol or drug use is listed as \u201cunknown.\u201d No DUI arrest has been made, and Herrera Valdez has not been criminally charged in connection with the crash.<\/p>\n
Engle\u2019s attorneys say the lack of an arrest raises serious questions about accountability \u2014 particularly given the documented wrong-way driving and the catastrophic outcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis case is about accountability,\u201d the legal team said. \u201cA woman who spent her life saving others has lost nearly everything \u2014 and her family is still waiting for answers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Demanding answers<\/p>\n
Engle, her husband, and their attorneys are scheduled to speak publicly Wednesday afternoon during a news conference at their Stuart home.<\/p>\n
They say the goal is not only to share Rebecca\u2019s story \u2014 but to call attention to accountability in serious crashes where lives are permanently altered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t just about a lawsuit,\u201d the family said. \u201cIt\u2019s about answers. And making sure this doesn\u2019t happen to someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STUART, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Nearly three months after a wrong-way crash left a longtime pediatric ICU nurse paralyzed,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-168706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Rebecca](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/050fad01-7041-40af-9caa-83818beb2c67-WPECPHOTOFORWEB.jpg\"\/)
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