KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. – A woman out cycling on Key Biscayne over the weekend says a jogger assaulted her.
Maria Galleguillo, a triathlete, said she was in a bike lane in an area with no pedestrian lane when she was hit in the face by a runner.
She said he smacked her with his water bottle and she fell off her bike. She was severely injured.
“That was a malicious act,” Galleguillo said.
Getting her usual workout in, she started over by Sunset Elementary School and made her way to Key Biscayne.
“We crossed Bear Cut after the first entrance to the marina, on the bike lane was this guy coming in the opposite direction,” she said. “The guy was running there, he was not supposed to be there. That was a bike lane, not a pedestrian lane.”
The runner was coming toward her in the bike lane near Crandon Park Marina.
“It was maybe like two or three feet of shoulder, but he stayed there so I didn’t have much room, so I passed him and he smashed in my face with a bottle of water,” said Galleguillo.
She quickly fell over her bike and hit the ground.
“After that, I don’t remember anything else,” she said.
Once she regained consciousness, she looked down at her wound and realized she was seriously injured.
Things were chaotic in that narrow bike lane as cyclists gathered around her, deterring traffic. The runner who hit her initially stayed as well.
“A witness and my buddy stopped him,” she said. “As more cyclists were coming together and I said, ‘Police, the guy took off.’”
Galleguillo says normally, runners move aside when cyclists are coming by, but this guy took it to another level.
“We are limited on the bike, so he could easily move to the shoulder. Even though he would slow down his pace, he could easily move to the shoulder, but he didn’t do it,” she said.
Now she faces health issues that not only stopped her from returning to work, but also limit her ability to exercise.
“I’m not going to be able to do my physical activity -- physical activity is for mental health,” she said.
Galleguillo filed a police report, but she hopes this story raises awareness to other pedestrians when in bike lanes.