Couple Survive As Car Plunges Off Cross Bronx Expressway Overpass
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Two people survived after the car they were in plunged 50 feet off a Cross Bronx Expressway overpass Monday, landing on a service road below.
The accident took place around 3:30 p.m. near Brush Avenue and Bruckner Boulevard in the Unionport section of the Bronx.
The driver lost control of the Toyota Matrix, careened over the barrier and onto the road below, police said.
Carlos Broadbelt, 54, and his wife, Raquel, were pulled from the crunched metal and glass, CBS 2's Dave Carlin reported. Both were injured, but not critically.
Carlin spoke to the couple's relatives, who were amazed and grateful their loved ones had survived.
"I was thinking how they were OK (despite) the way the car looked (and) how they landed," said Henry Peavey Jr., their nephew.
Raquel's brother, Miguel Cruz, said he was told Carlos Broadbelt was trying to avoid a massive pothole.
"There was a hole or something and he tried to weave. ... The car just flew," Cruz said.
Doctors are keeping the couple, who are both nurses, hospitalized at Jacobi Medical Center overnight for observation. Raquel complained of severe chest pains, Carlin reported.
Doctors told Carlin they have never seen a car accident quite like it -- not only that those inside survived it, but remaining alert and literally walked away from it.
A third person who was on the ground below was hit with debris from the flying vehicle. Doctors described those injuries as minor.
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