FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. —Two tourists had just arrived from Norway and spent the night on Fort Lauderdale beach when the unthinkable happened: They stumbled onto State Road A1A and an oncoming Porsche ran over them.
Terje Lungard Arnsten announced on Facebook that he, his wife and traveling companions were headed to South Florida. The time stamp from the airport in Stordal Norway said 2:05 a.m. on Feb. 5, a Wednesday.
Arnstan’s next post was at 7 p.m., Florida time, when he said they were at a pizza joint for the start of their holiday. Less than two hours later, he checked in online again. This time they were at the Rock Bar in Fort Lauderdale, a popular watering hole for locals and tourists.
In the comments section of Facebook, Arnsten’s friends expressed excitement about the vacation —a two-day trip to Florida before hoping on a cruise ship.
But then the Norweigen phrase “god bedring” began showing up on Arnsten’s Facebook page as word got out that Arnsten and travel companion Bjorghill Andreassen had fallen from the sidewalk near the Rock Bar at 4:15 a.m. and were run over by a vehicle.
The driver of the red Porsche never stopped and kept in heading up A1A, which the police are calling a case of hit and run.
Arnsten and Andreassen feel like a guardian angle was watching over them because they survived and have been released from the Broward Health Medical Center, according a Norwegian newspaper, Adresseavisen.
“It’s incredible luck,” Arnsten’s wife, Rita Lungard Arnsten, told the newspaper. She said there were tire tread marks on her husband’s shirt. “It could have gone much worse. A miracle.”
Fort Lauderdale Police are still looking for the driver of the red Porche.
—