Wrong Way Driver Crash Sends Another Car Into Pool
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) - Surveillance video captured a wild scene at a Fort Lauderdale hotel Wednesday as a driver headed the wrong way on A1A near Oakland Park Boulevard, smashed into a parked car and sent that vehicle into a hotel pool.
Fort Lauderdale city officials say the driver of the car was taken to Broward Health Medical Center with serious injuries. Fortunately, there was no one inside the rental car or pool at the time of the crash. The accident occurred at the Ocean Mile Inn.
People in the area say they heard a huge explosion. Sarah Ahlstrom left her hotel room to look outside and got quite a surprise.
"I looked down and I went 'Oh my God. There's a car in the pool,'" she told CBS 4's Carey Codd. "I looked over because I was parked in the first spot and I went, 'That's my car.'"
Ahlstrom said she was just about to leave her hotel room to get some slippers out of her car.
"In another 10 minutes, I would have been dead," Ahlstrom said.
The driver of the car was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. Investigators have not said what might have led to the crash.
Bill Mac, who works at the building just south of the hotel, said he watched the driver heading the wrong way moments before the crash. Mac showed us surveillance video that showed a car driving north in the south bound lanes of A1A near Oakland Park Boulevard. The driver swerved to barely miss one car then drove on the sidewalk to barely miss another.
"It was wild," Mac said. "You don't know where it's gonna wind up. It's like a roller coaster or something."
A roller coaster ride that ended with a car being lifted out of the pool by a crane and a driver with potentially life threatening injuries. Witnesses said it was a stroke of luck that no one was in the pool or outside near the parking lot when the accident happened.
Investigators have not released the name of the driver. Ahlstrom, who is visiting from Santa Fe, said she is praying for the driver and hopes she survives her injuries.
