Tire blowout causes fiery Wesley Chapel collision that sends two to hospital

WESLEY CHAPEL — A 21-year-old Ocoee woman lost control of her car early Sunday when a tire blew, sending the vehicle across Interstate 75 to bounce off the highway barrier and collide with another car, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

The woman’s car caught fire after the collision, just after 2 a.m. Sunday along southbound I-75 near State Road 56. Both the woman and the driver of the other car, a 28-year-old Zephyrhills man, were airlifted to a hospital, the Highway Patrol said.

It was the left front tire of the woman’s car that blew and she veered across all southbound lanes before hitting the median guardrail. The car bounced off the rail and spun back to the inside lane, where it was struck by the other car and pushed backward into the guardrail again.

The woman’s car came to rest in the inside lane and caught fire, the Highway Patrol said. The other car came to rest in the center inside lane.

The Highway Patrol did not identify the drivers because of its interpretation of Marsy’s Law, a voter-approved amendment to the state Constitution that was meant to protect crime victims but that deprives the public of information long available under Florida’s public records law.