POLK CITY – Tracey Loverde of Lakeland came to Fantasy of Flight this morning looking for her 2000 maroon Buick LeSabre.

Loverde said she was driving to work in Kissimmee on Wednesday when she saw the black smoke “like a wave on the ocean.” Loverde said she stopped her car and stayed inside for 3 1/2 hours. 

“I couldn’t see the truck in front of me,” Loverde said.

Loverde, who has asthma, later walked two miles to a rest stop and then went to Winter Haven Hospital because she was having trouble breathing.  She said the doctors were treating more serious patients, so her boyfriend brought her inhaler to the hospital.  She said she felt much better today.

Loverde said she did not learn how close she was to the worst of the crash site until she was watching television last night.

“I saw my car, literally, on the news.  I was like, ‘holy cow’,” Loverde said.  She said her Buick was about 10 cars behind the last car in the collision.

Now she’s missing her cell phone, her ring of keys and her car.  She talked to a trooper who said the Buick was not on the list of vehicles towed to Fantasy of Flight and suggested she check with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office next.

Trooper Larry Coggins, a Florida Highway Patrol spokesman, said the 40 to 45 vehicles, including tractor-trailers, on the grounds of Fantasy of Flight are directly related to the fatal crashes.

Investigators from the patrol and the Department of Transportation are trying to assemble a timeline for the crashes.  They are inspecting each vehicle to check lights, brakes, the general working condition and damage.

Anyone who has a car involved in one of the fatal crashes needs to call his or her insurance company, Coggins said.  The vehicles will not be released until the investigation is complete, he said.

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