A driver is speaking out and sharing his story after he was taken to the hospital with injuries to his leg and hip following a road rage confrontation along the Florida Turnpike in North Miami-Dade.
7News cameras captured 36-year-old Jairo Rodriguez as he walked out of Jackson North Medical Center, Wednesday afternoon. He showed a 7News crew the extent of his injuries.
“Literally the tire marks, of his tire marks and shoulder to shoulder, shoulder-to-shoulder pressed, and I got both of my hips,” he said as he pointed at his right leg.
Jairo said a cut in his hip needed 10 stitches.
“[The other driver] squished me between both of our cars and, literally, my side hip exploded from the pressure,” he said.
Hours earlier, just before 9:40 a.m., 7Skyforce hovered along the southbound lanes of the Turnpike near where Interstate 95 merges with the Palmetto Expressway.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, this started as some sort of altercation between the driver of a black pickup truck and the driver of a white van in Broward County.
While they were stopped in traffic, investigators said, Jairo, who was behind the wheel of the pickup truck, exited his vehicle and headed toward the van in an aggressive manner.
In an attempt to avoid the confrontation, authorities said, the driver of the van decided to take off, and that’s when he struck Jairo with the van’s side mirror.
“Reference road rage, the subject intentionally struck him with the vehicle per the complainant. FHP advised that they’re en route,” said a dispatcher in radio transmissions.
Jairo’s brother, Joan Rodriguez, later spoke with 7News.
“I got a call from my brother saying that he got hit by a car,” he said.
Miami Gardens Police officers and FHP troopers were seen talking with both drivers involved in the incident.
Even though investigators are calling his sibling the aggressor in this incident, Joan said, there is more to this story.
“They were driving, then my brother stepped out of the car, ’cause the guy – supposedly the was saying that, to step out of the car, and then my brother got out of the car, and the guy came and he hit [my brother],” he said. “He sideswiped [my brother] with the vehicle. You could see right there.”
Paramedics with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue transported Jairo to Jackson North Medical Center.
Outside the hospital, Jairo shared his side of the story.
“We got into an altercation on Commercial Road. He cut me off and brake checked me, pumped his breaks. So, I went around him and flicked him off, and then I thought that was the end of the confrontation,” he said.
After an exchange of gestures in Broward County with the man in the van, Jairo said, he headed for work in Miami-Dade, but about 20 minutes later, the white van appeared beside him on the Florida Turnpike near the Golden Glades and told him to pull over.
“[We’re in] bumper-to-bumper traffic, he pulled up next to me, and he was telling me to ‘pull over, pull over.’ So I pulled over, and when I pulled over and got out of the car to see what was going on, he accelerated his car at me,” he said.
When asked why he got out of the car in the first place, Jairo said, “I’m not sure. I was just going to see what we were gonna do. What was the problem? What was happening? Like why is he chasing me?”
He said for a moment he was pinned between his truck and the van and then he was injured.
“He ripped my inside open,” he said.
When asked about FHP’s readout of the incident, Jairo said that’s far from what occurred.
“I didn’t chase him, I didn’t follow him. He followed me, he kept looking for an altercation, and when I got out of the car, he tried to kill me with his vehicle,” he said.
Despite the blame being placed on him by investigators, Jairo said he was not charged or ticketed.
“There’s nothing to charge me with, because I didn’t do anything besides getting out of the car, and when I get out of the car, he tried to kill me with his vehicle,” he said.
Troopers temporarily shut down the southbound lanes while they investigated. They have since reopened to traffic.
As of Wednesday afternoon, FHP officials have not released the identity of the other driver.
Jairo told 7News he plans to take legal action against that driver.
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Source: wsvn
