For the first time, CBS News Miami is hearing from a survivor of the horrific crash last month on the MacArthur Causeway that took the life of fellow Florida International University student 19-year-old Gabriela Alejandra Rios Flores.
Eighteen-year-old Daniel Khan and a fellow student, who he was with, and their attorney spoke exclusively with CBS News Miami. Khan said he realizes that he, too, could have lost his life and he was left with a broken left forearm.
Khan said he and his fellow student, 19-year-old Mudasir Ali, were standing outside Rios Flores’s disabled Jeep Wrangler when it was struck by a car that police said was going about 100 miles per hour in a 40-mph zone and that driver has been charged with DUI manslaughter.
It happened just west of Miami Beach and just before 12:30 a.m. on Feb. 21 after they had left the South Beach Wine and Food Festival.
“I am in a littler pain,” Khan said. “I can’t use my hand properly that much. I just remember the car going at a high rate of speed and other than that I did not see anything and I realized after the accident with my forearm was broken and I could not stand on my feet because of the injury.”
“The car came at such a high speed and when I opened my eyes, I saw there on the road and I was depressed because of what happened,” he continued. “She was my friend and I lost her. I hope the State Attorney will take this case to the fullest and give us justice.”
“I only saw the car for three seconds and the car that was coming was going at such a high speed. I am so much stressed by this right now that this is affecting my studies. She was a very good friend of ours and I can’t imagine how this happened. I am unable to process all of this,” Ali told CBS News Miami. “We want justice.”
The students are being represented by attorney Jonathan Friedland of Coral Gables, who told CBS News Miami the accident is being investigated.
“We have a 19-year-old international student who lost her life and that never should have occurred,” he said. “My priority for them and my instructions for them is that we do a full investigation into this accident along with the State Attorney’s office and make sure that the truth comes out and that people accountable for the accident are held accountable.”
Friedland also represents the family of Rios Flores, who are from El Salvador.
According to a police report, Rios Flores’s Jeep Wrangler had broken down and a police officer moved it away from traffic and onto the shoulder of the westbound lanes of the McArthur Causeway.
The report said Nicholas Devin Robinson was driving a silver Polestar 2 after celebrating his birthday on Miami Beach when his car struck the Jeep Wrangler.
According to the report, Robinson had slurred speech and “reeked of alcohol” after he hit a median and slammed into the Jeep, which flipped onto the eastbound lanes and Rios Flores was ejected. She was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital but did not survive.
Robinson has been charged with DUI manslaughter as well as vehicular homicide in a reckless manner, reckless driving causing bodily injury, and DUI with serious bodily injury.
Robinson is being held on a $200,000 bond and will be on house arrest if he can post that bond. His attorney, Evan Hoffman, has filed a written plea of not guilty.
On Friday, Hoffman told CBS News Miami that he is waiting for “full discovery” documents that he has requested from the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and plans to mount a “vigorous defense.”
