Single mother finds back bumper of her vehicle ‘crunched’ in alleged hit and run in Bedford

When she went in for a routine shopping trip at the Wal-Mart in Bedford, the last thing Dametre Peverill expected to find on her way out was significant damage caused to her parked car.

“It wasn’t a ding. This wasn’t a scratch.”

The alleged hit and run occurred on Tuesday afternoon at the Wal-Mart Supercentre on Damascus Road in the Bedford Commons.

Peverill says she was in the middle of prepping her children for a new school year and wasn’t prepared financially to handle the outcome of this incident.

Heart sunken, she immediately began looking for somebody with answers.

“You’re wondering who did it,” Peverill said. “You’re looking around. You’re trying to figure out did they park somewhere else and go in? How could they walk away? What were they thinking?”

Unfortunately, the only people who noticed the damage was a couple who had parked near her. They came out moments before Peverill did and saw the bumper in disarray but didn’t actually witness what happened.

The next steps Peverill took were to call police and her insurance company.

READ MORE: Preliminary inquiry set for case involving man charged in fatal Dartmouth hit-and-run

The responding officer went into the store to inquire about possible video surveillance of the incident, but Peverill said they weren’t in luck.

Peverill contacted her insurance company to begin processing a claim and despite the fact that the incident wasn’t her fault, she said her company wouldn’t waive the deductible.

That means she is on the hook for $500.

Being on her own and in the middle of preparing her children to return back to school, it’s a financial blow she says came at the “worst time.”

According to the Canadian Automobile Association, every insurance claim is different and not all companies will waive deductibles in a no-fault claim.

“It would all be individual, based on the individual case-by-case basis,” said Julia Kent, the CAA Atlantic director of public and government affairs.

“It depends on if you had claims before. It depends on a lot of things.”

Kent said parking lot accidents are an everyday occurrence in the automobile insurance world.

“Parking lot accidents can range anywhere from just a few scratches to something more severe like what we saw in the parking lot there,” she said. “Obviously, when you’re hit in a parking lot, you’re not at fault.”

Kent says the steps to follow in the event that you’ve been struck in a hit and run are to call police, look for witnesses and contact your insurance company.

Peverill said she is now shopping for an insurance company that will cover deductibles in the event of a “no-fault” claim.

In the meantime, she’s hopeful anybody with any information will come forward and contact police.

“You work hard, you come home to your kids, you fight for everything you have, and then you come out and you see something that you worked so hard for in pieces,” she said.