Time: Around 1:15 P.M.
Location: Mission Valley, San Diego, California
Vehicle(s) Involved: BMW X5, Kia Sorento, Mercedes-Benz S-Class
By Kristina Davis and Ashly McGlone
"MISSION VALLEY
— A BMW crashed over the edge of a third-story parking structure at
Fashion Valley, injuring a passenger when it landed on its roof onto two
parked cars Saturday.
The crash occurred about 1:15 p.m. near Cheesecake Factory and Nordstrom.
Police
Officer Frank Cali said the driver of a silver BMW X5 was trying to
back out of the space when another driver was passing by. The man pulled
back into the space to let the car pass. On a second attempt to exit
the space, another driver approached and honked the horn. When pulling
back into the space, the man accidentally hit the accelerator instead of
the brake, causing the SUV to plunge over the side of the structure,
police said.
The SUV
teetered for a bit before it flipped, landing on its roof on the front
end of a Kia Sorrento and the back end of a Mercedes Benz sedan,
shattering the glass on both vehicles.
The
driver, who appeared to be in his 70s, was able to get out of the BMW
on his own, police and witnesses said. His girlfriend, who was a
passenger, was trapped in the wreckage. Witnesses did not want to
further injure her and waited for paramedics to extricate her, said Chad
Robley, who saw the crash and stopped to help.
She
was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, said San Diego police
accident investigator Mike Gottfried. The driver did not require
hospitalization. No one on the ground was hurt.
The Kia and the Mercedes were parked illegally, police said.
One
ground-level entrance to the parking garage was closed by mall
officials, but all three levels of the parking garage remained open
during the investigation."
