Man in bizarre I-75 accident reaches out to strangers

FORT MYERS, Fla. – A man is reaching out to the strangers who picked him up from the side of the road and took him to the hospital after a bizarre accident on Interstate 75 last week.

Sam Lumia was seriously injured after a tire blew off a car bounced across the median, jumped over a wire fence and smacked right into him on his motorcycle.

“After I was hit, I am thinking ‘okay, next thing the bike goes out of control. I am going to be tumbling down the highway. Am I going to fall this way or that way?’ And I can’t move my hand because it is hanging,” Lumia said.

A husband and wife saw the whole ordeal from their car, backed up, pulled over and came to Lumia’s rescue. Mentioning the pair’s act of compassion makes Lumia emotional.

“For somebody in this day and age to pull over — ,” he said, beginning to choke up. “She goes ‘We just seen everything. We seen the tire.’ She said ‘Get in. We are taking you to the hospital.'”

Lumia’s arm was shattered and bleeding but the couple wrapped it up and rushed him to Physician’s Regional. Lumia was flown to Lee Memorial Hospital from there.

But he never had a chance to get the names of the couple. They dropped him off without leaving a trace of their identities. Lumia, a retired New York City first responder who made it through the Sept. 11 attacks and survived cancer, called them angels.

“From the bottom of my heart, they have got to be sent from God,’ Lumia said. “They are angels or something. I don’t want nothing — just thank them and shake their hand. Just to see them.”

If you know who saved Lumia on April 6, please contact WINK News reporter Corey Lazar at corey.lazar@winknews.com.