{"id":285157,"date":"2026-05-26T20:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/285157\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T20:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:25:07","slug":"teen-nearly-thrown-off-sanibel-causeway-after-hit-and-run-crash-lee-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/285157\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen nearly thrown off Sanibel Causeway after hit-and-run crash | Lee County"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u2014A 17-year-old driver says he nearly lost his life after getting rear-ended on the Sanibel Causeway<\/a> during the holiday weekend.<\/p>\n

Dylan Neault was driving home early Sunday morning after hanging out with friends at the beach when he was rear-ended with such force that he almost tipped over the edge of the causeway. Law enforcement shut down the causeway for hours after the crash.<\/p>\n

“I’m thankful that I’m actually still here. It’s good to win any other way. I probably wouldn’t be talking right now, either critically injured in the hospital or gone,” Neault said.<\/p>\n

Neault told WINK News\u2019 Zoe Warner that he thought he was going into the water. He didn’t know if he was going to make it.<\/p>\n

Neault got out of the vehicle with just scratches and bruises. When he got out to see who hit him, no one was there.<\/p>\n

“Their car caught on fire. All the witnesses thought they were still in there, so they got hammers. They broke the windows. There’s no one in there. It was shocking. Like, how do you just leave after that and be completely okay with yourself? I mean, morally, it’s heartbreaking. And I’m a teenager, you know, I’m a minor, like, think as a parent, you know, I, he’s a parent, I would assume. How can you just do that?” Neault said.<\/p>\n

Neault said the driver was searched for hours. Law enforcement told him they questioned the driver once found, but no charges have been filed, and there’s no accountability from the driver.<\/p>\n

“My life is upside down because of this. I don’t just have money lying around to buy a new truck. I mean, I worked years for this thing, I just bought it three weeks ago,” Neault said.<\/p>\n

Neault said there were two people in the other vehicle. Police have questioned both of them, but they won’t talk anymore.<\/p>\n

“This man needs to get some punishment for this. These were two lives that were put completely at risk, including whoever was in the car with him, like it’s not only people he hit, but what if it was a son in there with him? He could have died, too,” Neault said.<\/p>\n

WINK News has requested the crash report and followed up with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office<\/a> to ask what’s next for the other driver involved in the crash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u2014A 17-year-old driver says he nearly lost his life after getting rear-ended on the Sanibel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,3837,325,115],"class_list":["post-285157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-collaborator_gen_stories","tag-lee","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285157","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=285157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}