A Subaru fell three stories from an Idaho resort parking garage, smashed through a protective barrier, and landed upside down.
The crash happened Friday afternoon at the Coeur d’Alene Resort parking garage in downtown Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
The Coeur d’Alene Fire Department said crews responded after a vehicle drove through a protective barrier on the third floor of the garage and fell to the ground below.
Photos released by the fire department show the white SUV resting on its roof after the fall, with heavy damage to the vehicle and visible damage around the area where it landed.
The two occupants were already outside the vehicle when firefighters arrived. Crews transported them to a hospital for evaluation and treatment of minor injuries, according to the fire department.
A Fall From Garage
The vehicle’s fall created a scene that left many people reacting to the photos afterward. The SUV broke through the garage barrier, dropped several floors, and came to rest upside down below the structure.
The physics behind the crash helps explain why the images look so severe. A three-story parking garage is generally around 30 to 40 feet high, meaning gravity alone would accelerate a falling vehicle to roughly 30 mph downward before it reached the ground.
That is only part of the impact. The SUV was already moving forward when it went through the barrier, while gravity was pulling it downward. Those two motions happen at the same time and combine into the vehicle’s final impact speed.
The easiest way to picture it is throwing a baseball from a roof. The ball does not stop moving forward when it starts falling. It continues traveling forward while gravity pulls it toward the ground. A vehicle leaving an elevated structure follows the same basic principle, although the forces are far greater because the object weighs thousands of pounds.
The fire department has not released details about what caused the vehicle to leave the third floor or how fast it was traveling before it crossed the barrier. Without information such as the vehicle’s speed, the precise height of the fall, and how the SUV struck the ground, the actual impact speed cannot be calculated.
Resort staff began working on repairs after the crash.
A commenter on the fire department’s post said the occupants were making a delivery at the resort and that the commenter’s drivers helped pull them from the vehicle after the crash. The fire department has not publicly identified the occupants or confirmed that detail.
Other commenters said they saw the damaged SUV being removed from the scene later that day. People familiar with the area also noted that the vehicle landed near a route used by pedestrians and cyclists, with several saying they regularly pass through the area.
Subaru Descent
The fire department did not identify the vehicle model, but photos from the scene appear to show a white Subaru Ascent. The rear badge is visible in images released by firefighters.
The apparent model also became part of the online reaction. One commenter joked that the SUV had become a “Subaru Descent” after its unexpected trip from the third floor to the ground.
Other commenters focused on how fortunate the outcome was, with many noting that a crash involving a vehicle falling several stories could have ended very differently.
A Different Outcome in Spokane
The unusual survival outcome also brought attention to another Pacific Northwest parking garage crash that ended much differently.
In 2006, a woman died after her Subaru Outback went through a concrete wall at the River Park Square parking garage in Spokane and fell several stories, according to The Spokesman-Review.
That crash involved a different garage, vehicle, and circumstances. In Coeur d’Alene, firefighters reported that both occupants survived the three-story fall with only minor injuries.