FORT MYERS, Fla. — After a veteran in a wheelchair was killed while trying to cross a road in Fort Myers, neighbors worry they could be in danger, too.

“He was a veteran like I was,” David James said. “He had the exact same chair that I do,” James said.

James said he lost his neighbor and friend Frank.

“He was a veteran brother,” James said. “He was a good man, and he was well-liked by his friends here.”

They were both veterans who spent most of their time together.

“He’d help me many times do things that both of us needed help since we are in wheelchairs,” he said.

But Sunday night before 11:30 p.m., Frank was killed trying to cross Winkler Avenue. Fort Myers police said a black SUV tried to avoid hitting him, but it was too late. FMPD said this crash was just an accident.

They aren’t charging the driver because they said Frank was found to be at fault.

“They need to monitor this road more often; they need to add street limit signs,” James said.

James said the City of Fort Myers needs to make a change to this busy roadway.

“I shouldn’t have to worry about it at all,” he said. 

He often doesn’t have a safe place to cross the roadway.

“I’ve been hit twice, the front end of this, by people running the red lights and stop signs while I’m in the middle of a pedestrian zone,” he said.

Now, red tape is where that footrest used to be.

“I’m spinning in the wheelchair, and the things are broken laying on the cement or the asphalt, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I hope my foot isn’t broken,’” James said.

He knows his situation could have been worse.

“Scared the dickens out of me!” he said.

James knows he could have been killed, too.

“The good lord is taking care of him; just a shame that he is not here anymore,” he said.

James and other residents need the city’s help!

They said the closest crosswalk is at the busy Colonial Boulevard intersection, which is full of cars; and they feel is unsafe. They want Frank’s death to be noticed by the city. They want change.