A car and a pickup truck collided at a residential intersection Friday night, an accident that claimed one life and sent two people to the hospital, authorities said.
Police and fire rescue crews responded to the scene on Northeast 142nd Street and 10th Avenue in North Miami around 7 p.m.
A neighbor said the loud noise the vehicles made when they collided was unmistakable. “It’s like a boom outside,” said nearby resident Jeff Haley, who heard the crash and went out to find the car engulfed in flames. “I went back inside to get a fire extinguisher.”
Haley was unable to put out the fire. He then noticed a mangled pickup truck a few feet away from the burning car. “And there was a person laying at the side of one of the cars and I pulled him away from the car and down the sidewalk,” he said.
Police believe one of the drivers involved in the crash ran a stop sign, most likely speeding as he did so. “One car had the stop sign as it was approaching Northeast 10th Avenue westbound, and it looks like maybe that car ran a stop sign,” said a police investigator at the scene, adding that they still do not know which car ran the stop sign. “There was debris for quite a distance, and we just want to know exactly which car was heading in which direction,” he said.
Haley said he thinks another person who was in the truck was already safely away from the fire. He said both that person and the one he dragged away from the burning car were airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital.
In the aftermath of the blaze, a burned-out shell of a car remained on the scene.
No further details were available about the person who died in the accident.