A hit-and-run accident left a Tampa woman severely injured and in constant pain.

Diana Pena, 33, has already undergone two surgeries and faces months of more operations and physical therapy.

Her family recently filled a Tampa General Hospital waiting area, praying and hoping she would fully recover.

"Without her, I have nothing. So, I felt like I was losing my life. Honestly,” said boyfriend Jason Hal.

Losing his girlfriend of five years was something Jason Hall had never considered until the couple ran out of gas on Boyette Road in Riverview in the early morning hours of July 4.

Somehow, the two got separated and as Diana crossed the road to get gas, police say 26-year-old Matthew R. Fox of Riverview hit her with his gray Toyota Corolla.

A passerby saw her in the road and called 911.

"I was just freaking out,” Hall said as he remembered seeing Pena in the ambulance.

“Every terrible thought you could think of was going through my head.”

When Hall and her family got to the hospital, doctors said she was alive but could be paralyzed.

So far, doctors have operated on her legs, back and pelvis.

The family says they are focusing on Pena’s recovery right now and say they honestly don’t have time to think about Fox or even judge him for what he is accused of doing.

"I don't have time for anger or animosity right now,” Hall said.  “I just want her to get better."

Pena’s family says she's the strongest one out of all of them.

"The pain she's going through, she's one tough girl because she's going through a lot,” said niece Belinda Orozco.

Orozco considers herself a sister to Pena because they are only two years apart.

The family is now relying on their faith in God and in the surgeons.

Hall knows all too well this could have had a very different ending.

 "That's all I could really think about was, just, I just wanted to take her place.  That's all I wanted,” Hall said.  “I just didn't want anything to happen to her."

With all the surgeries and physical therapy, Pena’s family says recuperation could take more than a year.

Pena is the youngest of three siblings and a mother of a nine-year-old girl.

Police arrested Fox a day after the accident.

Officers said they found his car at a home on Tranquility Lake Circle covered with a sheet that hid damage from the crash.

Fox has been charged with leaving the scene of a crash with injury.