VIDEO: It was probably the last thing Matt Olechnowicz expected when he asked a valet at a Biscayne Boulevard parking garage to get his car about 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Olechnowicz told reporters that a short time later his custom 2005 Acura TL plunged down an elevator shaft and burst into flames.
“When I called for the car, all the sudden I hear my car alarm going off and I hear a big bang. I turn around and the car had fallen down the elevator shaft,” Olechnowicz told WPLG-Ch. 10.
The standalone downtown Miami parking garage has no ramps — it uses mechanical lifts to get vehicles into and out of their parking spaces.
Miami Fire Rescue Capt. Ignatius Carroll Jr. said that for unknown reasons the car went through a safety gate before plunging to the ground and catching fire. No one was inside the car and there were no reported injuries.
Olechnowicz, who lives in Miami Beach and works in an office building near the parking garage, thinks he knows what might have happened.
“It’s a manual car, so I believed they left it in gear and somehow it got started and it fell down the nine floors,” he told WTVJ-Ch. 6.