During my afternoon bike ride I came upon a scary, and then, quite odd site. On the way back to Mt Pleasant, I heard a LOUD crash and looked up to see an SUV on its side and several people running towards the wreckage. The crash was on Adams Mill, north of Lanier St. The SUV was on its side; I was looking at the undercarriage as I arrived. I sped around the crash to see if I could help the passengers out of the driver's side window, which looked to be the only way out of the vehicle. Luckily two guys had beat me to the scene and one of the passengers was already out and walking, dazed. I walked up to him and stupidly asked "Are you ok?" Then I asked "Is there anyone else in the car?" He kind of shook his head, and I looked over to the crash site to see another fellow climbing out and jumping to the ground. The smell of burnt oil and rubber was heavy and I wondered if real crashed cars exploded as easily as the one's on TV did.Then something strange happened. The two passengers walked away. Not walked away to get perspective, or sit down, they walked away, like, AWAY. They were gone. In the fervor to make sure there weren't any other victims, the good samaritans who had gathered to help out, well, we were wondering what happened. I had called 911, and was on hold for a bit, then reported the accident. It was already on the books, according to the operator.
There was one major car casualty besides the SUV. A small Volkswagen looked to be totalled. It was parked on Adams Mill and the SUV t-boned it. Hard. Had I been 15-20 seconds ahead of myself I would have been pretty close to becoming a SUV-VW sandwich. Not to make light of the situation, but the what-ifs are always mind-boggling.
After the cavalry arrived (two ambulances, three police cruisers, fire truck) we started to realize what was happening. Fire fighters checked inside the rear door of the SUV, nothing. Luckily, no one in the parked cars which were damaged. The second fellow reappeared; in handcuffs. He had either stopped, or was apprehended a block away. Not clear if he returned to the scene by his own free will. He was put on a gurney (handcuffed to it) and taken away into an ambulance. Then we overheard one of the officers say that the licence plates on the SUV belonged, not to the SUV, but to a Dodge Plymouth. Something was afoot.
Then I went home.
6 comments:
I was actually one of the first people there ...and helped the guys out of the car. Two of them seemed fine and got out pretty quickly.. The last and maybe the driver was really disorientated but managed to pull himself out of the drivers side window.. He then basically rolled off the top of the car (i caught him as he was obviously messed up). One of the other guys kind of waved and picked him and up as I was pleading with him to lie down. Despite my attempts he and the other 2 guys then stumbled down Adams Mill and out of sight leaving myself and other witnesses wondering what had happened. I assumed the car was stolen and the guys were impaired in some way. It was pretty crazy.
Hello DC, and greetings from Vienna, Austria. That would be my VW Golf that got totaled. What a sad interruption to an otherwise pleasant summer in Europe. Sadly this is not even the first time my car was damaged by a hit and run in Adams Morgan. The last one left a football-sized dent in the fender, but of course no note of apologies. Hey, anyone in the market for some Golf parts?
sean, i still have no idea how the truck ended up in that position. it's like they jumped the curb from the southbound lane.
hnaemi, no kidding!? seemed like some reverse karma that the bmw behind your vw was hardly scratched.
you seem so resigned. sorry about your misfortune. since you seem to be in good spirits, maybe now you can check out my series about going car free in dc.
Tim... I have a feeling they were going really fast.. I live on Calvert St. across the street from the corner of Adams Mills and before the accident occured i saw or rather heard the explorer peel out from Cliffborne Pl onto Calvert then floor it. I guess they tried to make an illegal U turn from Calvert onto Adams Mill going really fast and just lost control.
I spoke to one person who saw the vehicle just before the crash. It was traveling fast, hit the center median curb and just lost control.
whoa! that is crazy. Something similar happened in Columbia Heights awhile back, guys crashed into a bunch of cars and got caught. I wonder if it's just drunk people or something else.
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