A woman was in serious condition after a tire got loose from a truck and hit her as she ran on the Rickenbacker Causeway early Monday.
According to Miami Fire-Rescue, a tractor trailer was headed westbound on the Rickenbacker when it lost two of its tires.
One of those tires bounced into a parking lot, while the other bounced across the Rickenbacker and hit Stephanie Hilzinger, who was running.
"This is something that you'd probably see out of a movie, but it's one of those freak accidents that occurred and nobody would ever think this would happen," said Capt. Ignatius Carroll with MFR.
Hilzinger didn't see the tire coming as she was running with her boyfriend, Fernando Munoz, in the pedestrian path. She was taken to Ryder Trauma Center in serious condition.
The founder of the Miami Marathon, Frankie Ruiz, happened to run by the scene and snapped a photo of Munoz performing CPR on Hilzinger.
"On Tuesday night, I run with 300 or 400 people and gosh, what if this hit an entire crowd of runners or cyclists? Luckily, he was able to perform CPR and help her right then and there," Ruiz said.
Munoz said he's a dental anesthesiologist, trained in cardiac resuscitation techniques, and that he's not a hero, he just did what he could to save his girlfriend. He also suffered scrapes and bruises when the tire knocked him down.
The truck's driver was eventually flagged down, but he told authorities he had no idea he had lost the tires.
