A Southern California man said he and his wife are lucky to be alive after a violent and fiery motorcycle crash in Long Beach earlier this month that left them both hospitalized.
The Jan. 10 crash occurred around 10:30 a.m. near the intersection of Ocean Boulevard and Orange Avenue.
Ramon Acosta told KTLA’s Rachel Menitoff that he and his wife, Michaele, were headed to breakfast ahead of a meetup with other motorcycle enthusiasts for a ride up Pacific Coast Highway.
Before they were able to do either of those things, a motorist reportedly made an illegal left turn in front of them, causing their motorcycle to T-bone the vehicle and immediately burst into flames.
The force of the impact threw Acosta onto the hood of the vehicle he crashed into and carried him away from the fire, while his wife was ejected onto the street, narrowly missing the flames.
“If one of our pants got caught on the bike, we would have ended up engulfed in flames,” Acosta said.
A SoCal couple narrowly survived a fiery two-vehicle motorcycle crash in Long Beach on Jan. 10, 2026. (R. Acosta)
A SoCal couple narrowly survived a fiery two-vehicle motorcycle crash in Long Beach on Jan. 10, 2026. (S. Richardson)
A SoCal couple narrowly survived a fiery two-vehicle motorcycle crash in Long Beach on Jan. 10, 2026. (S. Richardson)
A SoCal couple narrowly survived a fiery two-vehicle motorcycle crash in Long Beach on Jan. 10, 2026. (S. Richardson)
A SoCal couple narrowly survived a fiery two-vehicle motorcycle crash in Long Beach on Jan. 10, 2026. (S. Richardson)
A SoCal couple narrowly survived a fiery two-vehicle motorcycle crash in Long Beach on Jan. 10, 2026. (S. Richardson)
A SoCal couple narrowly survived a fiery two-vehicle motorcycle crash in Long Beach on Jan. 10, 2026. (S. Richardson)
A SoCal couple narrowly survived a fiery two-vehicle motorcycle crash in Long Beach on Jan. 10, 2026. (R. Acosta)
Acosta suffered a broken arm and internal bleeding, while his wife required a full hip replacement due to the injuries suffered in the harrowing ordeal. Both are expected to recover.
The couple has nine children between the two of them, some of whom told KTLA that they were extremely concerned when the incident happened.
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“When they told me he was in an accident, I tried to get here as fast as I could,” daughter Sara Acosta said. “No one wants to hear that their parent is in the hospital, so that really scared me, especially since he’s always on his motorcycle.”
Daughter Aliyah Taylor said that both of them are now doing better than when they first arrived at the hospital.
“I just really hope that they can build back, like, how things were,” she said.
It’s unclear if anyone will face charges in the accident, though Long Beach police officials said that the cause of the crash remains under investigation.
A SoCal couple narrowly survived a fiery two-vehicle motorcycle crash in Long Beach on Jan. 10, 2026. (R. Dominguez via GFM)
Michaele, who suffered the worst of the injuries, is being discharged ahead of her husband because she does not have health insurance to help cover the more than $200,000 in medical bills that she’s incurred.
The family, according to a GoFundMe organized for the couple, said that neither of them can work and earn an income right now and that the “financial strain has become overwhelming” between their emergency medical bills and taking care of basic month-to-month living expenses.
“It’s weird because when everything is going okay, you don’t realize how many people care about you,” he told KTLA from his hospital bed. “Then when it goes bad, they all come out. For everybody that reached out, thank you, guys.”
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