ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A Good Samaritan was ambushed and violently attacked after stopping to help a motorist who crashed on a Central Florida expressway, video obtained exclusively by News 6 reveals.
Hans Hamilton, who said he suffered brain bleed and broken ribs during the roadside assault, has set up a GoFundMe fundraiser to help cover his unexpected medical expenses.
“This person tried to kill me,” said Hamilton. “I don’t want anyone else to go through what I did.”
Hamilton was driving north on the 429 Expressway near Walt Disney World on Monday when he noticed a white Lexus that had collided into a guardrail.
Video captured by cameras on Hamilton’s Tesla appears to show a man staggering out of the driver’s side door and collapsing in the grass in front of the Lexus.
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As Hamilton pulled off the expressway to provide aid, the man’s body was initially motionless.
But moments later, as the Good Samaritan exited his Tesla, the man leaped up and began running.
A camera mounted on the front of Hamilton’s car shows the man jumping on the hood and roof of the Tesla, shattering the windshield.
The man then tackled Hamilton to the ground and began beating him, video captured by another Tesla camera shows.
For nearly 30 seconds, the man repeatedly punched Hamilton in the head, face, neck and back.
Hamilton eventually broke free and began hitting the man in the throat to stop him, he told News 6.
An Orange County deputy soon arrived and identified the attacker as 44-year-old Daniel Coman.
Coman told the deputy he only spoke Spanish despite previously speaking English to Hamilton, according to the arrest report.
When the deputy first attempted to take Coman into custody, Coman approached in an “aggressive fighting manner” and “began swinging his left hand as if he was going to strike” the law enforcement officer, an arrest affidavit states.
Hamilton and another bystander grabbed Coman’s arms and helped hold him down as the deputy placed him in handcuffs, records show.
Coman was arrested on charges of battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting an officer with violence, assault on a law enforcement officer, battery and criminal mischief.
Prior to attacking Hamilton, Coman was involved in a separate hit-and-run crash two mile south that was being investigated by the Florida Highway Patrol, deputies said.
Coman is also a suspect in a “similar criminal mischief incident” that occurred earlier that morning, his arrest affidavit states.
Orange County deputies originally asked that Coman be held in jail without bond, records show, but a judge set bond at $5,000.
Coman was in the hospital for an undisclosed reason at the time of his scheduled first court appearance Tuesday, court records show. He remained in custody at the Orange County Jail Thursday night.
An ambulance transported Hamilton to the hospital where he said he was treated for a brain breed, a concussion, multiple contusions, and four broken ribs.
“My family and I live paycheck to paycheck,” Hamilton wrote on his GoFundMe account. “Now, on top of trying to heal, I am facing auto and hospital deductibles, as well as tens of thousands of dollars in medical expenses.”