A man was arrested in the Village of Fernandina after a New Year’s Eve attack sent a woman to The Villages Regional Hospital.
The woman was transported by ambulance on New Year’s Eve from a home on Fieldbrook Way, according to an arrest report from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. The woman said she had been seated on a couch talking on the phone with an out-of-state friend when 60-year-old Michael Heath Buchanan became “aggravated” and grabbed her neck “in an aggressive manner.”
She escaped to a back patio area where she called law enforcement. When deputies arrived, she had swelling in the area of her collar bone. Buchanan was gone.
The next morning, deputies returned and arrested Buchanan in his living room. The California native is facing a third-degree felony charge of battery on a person over the age of 65. He was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center and released after posting $1,000 bond.
