A Florida teen is in serious condition after a pickup truck struck him while he was getting a haircut in a busy road median for a TikTok stunt.
The 18-year-old had stationed himself in a chair on the 2500 block of SW College Road in Ocala, Florida, around 8:10 p.m. Sunday, according to the Ocala Police Department. Two other men, ages 19 and 20, were with him recording the video outside a shopping plaza.
A 3500 Chevy Silverado and a Lexus SUV collided nearby, and the pickup clipped the seated teen before first responders rushed him to a local hospital. Police listed him in serious condition. Investigators are still determining the cause of the crash, though neither driver showed signs of intoxication.
The two uninjured men later described the chaos to bystander Yaj Lerom, who captured their account on Instagram video. “We were chillin’ right there, and I was givin’ my boy a haircut,” one of them said. “Next thing you know, I’m on the ground. We’re pancakes and flapjacks, flying.”
Witness Damian Fox told Fox35 that the group had started by giving haircuts on the sidewalk before moving into the roadway. The two unhurt men claimed they had chosen the median because it seemed safer than their original plan of setting up directly in traffic lanes.
Fox described the videographer’s reaction as oddly detached in the immediate aftermath. “I don’t think he realized the severity of it at first,” Fox said, noting the man came across as nonchalant and partially goofy despite what had just occurred.
Ocala Police spokesperson Jeff Walczak made the department’s position plain. “We would never advise this,” he told the outlet.
Lerom, who has built a following as a content creator, has pressed for platform-level action against dangerous stunt content. “I got goosebumps and I got them again. I get it every time I talk about it because it’s, being a content creator, I don’t want to sound hypocritical because I’m in some crazy places, but I’m not putting myself out there,” he told WKMG. “My thing was, young kids, something needs to be done. These accounts that are doing that need to be banned. They shouldn’t even be seeing these videos.”
He drove the point home with blunt advice for aspiring influencers: “the likes ain’t worth your life.”
The incident marks the latest in a string of social media stunts that have migrated from sidewalks and parking lots into active roadways, with participants increasingly filming in traffic-adjacent spaces to maximize dramatic backdrop footage.