29 people are hurt and 13 are taken to the hospital after a tractor-trailer crashes into 18 other cars on a Florida highway.
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A witness told NBC Miami, "You could hear the tires screeching, break, and crash, and you could smell the burning in the air."
In Miami-Dade County, Florida, 18 cars were involved in a chain-reaction crash that hurt more than twenty people.
NBC Miami, Local 10 News, and the Miami Herald all reported that the accident happened around 11:25 p.m. on Thursday, August 28, in the southbound lanes of I-95 near Ives Dairy Road. The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) said 29 people were hurt, and 13 were taken to the hospital.
According to Lt. Alex Camacho of the Florida Highway Patrol, a tractor-trailer going south on I-95 failed to stop and hit cars and trucks in the road.
"As a result, the tractor trailer hit several other cars, setting off a chain reaction of accidents," Camacho said.
According to NBC Miami, 29 people were treated for injuries in the crash, and 13 of them were taken to nearby hospitals for further care.
NBC Miami reported that an adult was taken to the hospital as a trauma alert patient. Nine people and three children were also taken to the hospital. Some of the people hurt in the crash were taken to HCA Florida Aventura Hospital with minor injuries, Camacho told Local 10 News.
NBC Miami reports that the sixteen other people were checked out at the scene and did not need any more medical care.
The Florida Highway Patrol and the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue did not reply right away to requests for comment.
One of the people who saw the crash on his way home on Thursday night was Luis Rodriguez. To NBC Miami, he said it was a shocking sight to see as he walked by.
"You could hear tires screeching, you could hear banging, crashing, you could smell the burnt in the air," he told the media. "The Fire Rescue Unit of the Miami-Dade Police Department and the highway patrol all stepped in so quickly." It only took them minutes to answer."
"All you could see as you drove by were wrecked cars and trucks and people being carried out on stretchers," he told Local 10 News. "It looked like something out of a movie."
Local 10 News says that overnight, a fuel leak shut down part of I-95 and traffic had to be redirected to Ives Dairy Road. The road reopened around 6:20 a.m., according to the source.
Police did not name the tractor-trailer driver, and it was not clear what caused the accident. Camacho did say, though, that the tractor-trailer driver would be charged.