Car smashes into Culver City gym, injuring man on treadmill

A day at the gym explodes into chaos in Culver City when a car careens through a window and it's all caught on video.

It happened in Culver City at the "Anytime Fitness" gym at 4130 Sepulveda Boulevard on March 29. That car hit a man on a treadmill. The gym's security cameras captured the incident from multiple angles.

The video shows a man, later identified as Samuel Kiwasz, up on a treadmill warming up for a group training class when several seconds later, an SUV charges through the building, ramming the treadmill into the back wall and pinning Kiwasz between the two. Fortunately, the door to a back office was not locked, it was pushed open, and that may have saved his life.

"It's a miracle that I'm alive," said Kiwasz. "All of a sudden there was this loud crash and the glass came flying and I got hit...and I got shoved back and I went flying and rolled to the side so I wouldn't get crushed."

The driver, a blonde woman in socks, exits the SUV to check on Kiwasz but then tries to get back in her vehicle. That's when an off-duty police officer who happened to be exercising, stops her until backup arrives.

Gym employees say the woman, who was not immediately identified, told police her brake pedal didn't work.

Kwasz calls himself a goodwill ambassador for the Southern California community and says nothing, not even this incident, can share his good spirits.