An Ohio man was hospitalised and his car riddled with bullets after meeting up with a stranger he met online, according to police.

The victim, a 25-year-old man from Lakewood, drove to nearby Fairview Park on Nov 11, to see a woman he had been talking to online, Fairview Park police said in a news release.

Lakewood and Fairview Park are suburbs of Cleveland.

He pulled into a driveway to pick her up around 8.50pm, the release said. But moments after she sat down in the passenger seat, he told police an armed man came up to the driver’s side door.

Believing he was about to be carjacked, the victim stepped on the gas to get away, and the man opened fire, the release said. The woman jumped out of the moving car.

Several bullets hit the vehicle and one struck the victim in the back, police said.

He drove himself to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

“As of this writing we have not located the shooter or the female,” police said in the Nov 12 release, but added that investigators found evidence they are “confident will lead to their identification”.

 - TNS