A young woman who was trapped underneath a Jeep after being hit in Miami Beach spoke on Friday about the desperate moments she lived through while waiting to be rescued.
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Ana said that she still has a hard time believing she survived.
“They were so careful to me, like, are you okay?” she said.
The crash happened near 71st Street and Bay Drive East, as Ana was riding a scooter through a gas station area.
She said she had seen the vehicle and thought the driver was letting her go. However, she says the Jeep moved forward as she was crossing.
“I tried to hit the car, and I tried to scream,” she said. Ana said the vehicle kept moving until she ended up on the ground, and one of the wheels went over the area of her head and neck.
The young woman was trapped under the vehicle.
At that moment, she remembers hearing a voice asking her in English, “Are you okay?” Ana then began to call for help and scream for them to get her out.
Images captured by police body-worn cameras show several officers working quickly to lift the Jeep and free her.
Ana said it felt like help arrived very fast, although under the vehicle, every second felt much longer.
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“I literally felt like they were my angels, like rescuing me, like it was within seconds, they just take me out,” she said.
Days after the accident, she is walking on her own, though she is keeping one arm immobilized due to a fractured shoulder.
The emotional wounds are still there.
“Thankfully God was beside me, and my family was praying for me,” she said.
Ana says she still avoids looking toward the gas station where it all happened because she’s afraid of reliving what happened.
Now she is trying to focus on her recovery and on the chance, she says, she was given to keep moving forward.
For her, surviving changed the way she looks at each day.
Police said the driver of the Jeep was cited for causing the crash.
This story was translated from Spanish with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool. An NBC6 digital editor reviewed the translation.
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