A Jeep Wagoneer hurtled down a Tribeca sidewalk on Saturday morning, hit a parked Honda Civic and a string of other parked vehicles, and set off a chain reaction that left a Subaru on its side and resting on top of the car in front of it. No one was hurt. The driver got out of the Jeep on his own and was seen sitting on a nearby curb.
According to the Tribeca Trib, which obtained security camera footage of the crash, the Jeep had been heading east past Greenwich Street at a high rate of speed when it left the street and continued onto the sidewalk. The vehicle toppled a street sign, hit planters and a tree, and sideswiped the Honda Civic. The chain reaction unfolded just outside 7 Hubert Street.
At the scene, an officer said that the driver was believed to have experienced a “medical episode.” The driver refused medical attention. He was not arrested, however, there was no additional information offered about what type of “medical episode” he had gone through.
A passenger also got out of the Jeep after the airbag deployed. Witnesses on the street said the morning’s outcome could easily have been worse. The block, one neighbor said, is a busy area for strollers and dogs on a Saturday morning.
What the Cameras and Witnesses Show
Security camera footage obtained exclusively by the paper shows the Jeep Wagoneer heading east on Hubert Street and continuing onto the sidewalk at a high rate of speed past Greenwich Street. The vehicle knocked over a street sign, hit planters and a tree on the sidewalk, and sideswiped a parked Honda Civic.
It then rear-ended another parked car, and the impact pushed that car so hard into the next vehicle in line that the struck vehicle flipped onto its side. A Subaru ended up resting on top of the car that had been parked in front of it on Hubert Street, outside 7 Hubert.
The driver exited the Jeep on his own after the crash and sat down on a nearby curb. He refused medical attention at the scene. A passenger in the vehicle also got out after the airbag deployed. An officer on the scene told the Trib that the driver was believed to have experienced a medical episode while behind the wheel. The driver was not arrested.
What Witnesses Said
Rene Rivera, the doorman at 7 Hubert Street, told the Tribeca Trib that he had just finished sweeping the area outside the building and was walking back inside, with the porter behind him, when the Jeep hit. Rivera said he had been lucky to be out of what he described as the impact zone. Jamie Hort, the owner of the Subaru that ended up resting on top of another car, told the Trib her family had been planning to head to the beach within the hour.
Her son Sam Hort, 23, was standing across the street at the corner of Collister and Hubert when he saw the Jeep, in his words, “flying” down the sidewalk. He later said the driver climbed out and told him he had lost control on one of the cobblestones, although Hort could not tell where the driver was pointing.
He said it was only later, while on the phone with 911, that he realized the family’s own car was the one resting on its side. Lizzie Pincus, who heard the crash from her apartment across the street, told the Trib the block was a busy spot for strollers and dog walkers on Saturdays and that it was shocking to have no injuries for that level of carnage.