CINCINNATI — Ismail Sallam hasn’t slept since he crashed his car Wednesday evening on I-75. Scratches, bruises and marks on his body show how close he was to a highway shootout that left two people hospitalized.
"Every time you just close your eyes you feel like you’re in the accident again," Sallam said. "It’s hard. It’s not easy."
Sallam, 19, was on his way home from class at Cincinnati State University Wednesday evening. He was driving on northbound I-75 northbound near the Norwood Lateral in the left lane.
“You could hear the shooting next to you, just look at it. The fire goes out of the guns just one time,” Sallam recounted the moments during the shooting. He said he heard between 10 and 15 shots fired from a car on the road.
According to a crash report, the driver of the car from which shots were being fired crashed into Sallam. That collision caused Sallam to crash into the median barrier and then flip his car.
"All of it ... happened in just seconds,” he said. "You can’t take any action to go out of the way for anything like this."
While upside down, Sallam said his lone option was to unbuckle the seat belt and crawl out the broken passenger side window.
"I didn’t know what I should do. I didn’t know where I was at — the middle of the road, left or right side?" he said. "Who could come and hit you?"
"It's a nightmare," Ismail Sallam, 19, was able to walk away from this crash last night on I-75. He was driving home from college when he got caught up in the middle of a shootout on the highway.
— Jake Ryle (@JakeWCPO) September 16, 2022
His reaction on @WCPO at 11. pic.twitter.com/uXHIzqd48L
Sallam was evaluated at a hospital. Police then gathered his witness statement.
The crash report said two individuals were engaged in a shootout with another unknown vehicle. During the shootout, the unknown vehicle hit Sallam’s car. The car with two people in the shootout veered off the highway and into an embankment.
Per CPD, one of the two shooting victims is stable. The other remains in critical condition.
Police have yet to identify the drivers or locate the unknown vehicle involved in the shootout. Anyone who has information related to the incident should call Cincinnati police.
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