A Florida waitress was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding her bicycle this week, less than three months after she was rescued from Hurricane Irma by a local crocodile hunter, who then fell in love with her.
Nehama Rena Mondzioch, of Big Coppitt Key, found herself trapped inside her home during the storm that swept through the Florida Keys in September.
In an interview with NBC 6, the woman later recalled: ‘I was scared, I screamed to God, and I started to cry.’
Nehama Rena Mondzioch, 43 (left), was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Florida on Sunday, just a couple of months after Chris Guinto (right) and another neighbor rescued her during hurricne Irma
Daring rescue: Mondzioch is pictured after being pulled from her collapsing Big Coppitt Key home during the storm in September
Hero to the rescue: Guinto rushed into the woman’s home after hearing her cries for help, in a rescue that was captured in a GoPro video (pictured above)
Mondzioch’s roof partially caved in during the hurricane, trapping her inside
Two neighbors, among them local sculptor and reptile trapper Chris Guinto, heard the woman’s cries for help and came to her aid, breaking down her door and pulling her to safety just as the roof of her home was caving in.
Mendzioch’s dramatic rescue was captured in a GoPro video.
Afterwards, Guinto rejected the notion that his actions that day were heroic.
‘All I did was open a door. That’s all I did. I mean, I don’t want to be painted as [a hero] or anything like that,’ Guinto said.
At around 12.30am on Sunday, Mendzioch was biking home along highway US 1 after finishing her shift at Boondock’s Restaurant on Ramrod Key when she was struck by a dark gray GMC Sierra 2500 pickup truck, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators say the driver, described as a white male in his 20s or 30s, fled the scene of the collision, leaving Mondzioch for dead by the side of the road. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to Florida Highway Patrol Corporal David Riso, the lead investigator, Mondzioch was riding her bicycle southbound in the northbound bike lane of the highway. The pickup truck that struck her headed northbound.
Guinto, a local sculptor and crocodile trapper, said he fell in love with Mondzioch
Guinto described the 43-year-old woman as his ‘angel’ and the strongest person he’s ever met.
On Wednesday, the sheriff’s office announced that thanks to a tip, they have located and impounded the vehicle suspected of being involved in the fatal hit-and-run crash.
According to a press release, the truck was spotted in Summerland Key. Investigators are still in the process of trying to positively identify the driver of the truck. As of Friday morning, no arrests have been made.
Following Mondzioch’s death, Guinto, her rescuer-turned-boyfriend, mourned her untimely death, describing the 43-year-old woman as his ‘angel’ and the strongest person he’s ever met.
In an interview with NBC6, the devastated man said he considers the few weeks he had spent with Mondzioch as the best times of his life. According to Guinto, the pair had been inseparable and were planning to leave the Florida Keys and start afresh someplace else.
‘There are no words to express how sorry I am Rena,’ he wrote in a Facebook tribute. ‘I am haunted by a tormenting guilt that I will carry the rest of my life. The short time we spent together seemed to of spanned a lifetime…they were the best days of my life.
‘I was looking forward to spending the rest our lives together on that shag rug in front of that fireplace in our mountain cabin just forgetting about the rest of the world with all the abundance we could ever have. I am completely dead inside. I will love you forever…’