Car crashes through apartment
Lt. John Mueller checks on the occupants of an SUV still trapped in inside after it was driven into the side of Key Apartments Saturday afternoon. - Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com
No one was injured when a black SUV ran through a first floor apartment window at Key Apartments around 3:45 p.m. Saturday.
The two occupants of an SUV that ran into the side of Key Apartments Saturday afternoon are checked over by Gold Cross after they were extracted from the vehicle. - Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com
Two people inside the SUV were trapped for about 15 minutes after witnesses say the car, attempting to park in a parking spot behind the building, suddenly accelerated from their spot and through the apartment window.
“I heard this roar, so (the driver) must have hit the gas,” said Dave Loverink, Key Apartments manager. Loverink was driving past the car when it happened and called the police after he saw the car stuck halfway through the apartment window and into a bedroom.
The apartment tenant, KAAL TV employee Andrew Lovelette, was on assignment at the time of the accident.
“I’m just speechless,” Lovelette said.
The SUV that was driven into the side of Key Apartments Saturday is pulled out of the apartment it was imbedded in by Midtown Towing. - Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com
Austin Police Lt. John Mueller said the car landed on Lovelette’s bed, which didn’t collapse under the car’s weight. Lovelette said aside from a broken lamp and some glass and wall pieces in the bedroom, nothing was injured.
The car was removed at about 4:20, with no apparent structural damage.
Mueller said while police have seen cars run into buildings before, this accident was unique.
“We’ve never seen one quite impaled like that,” Mueller said.
Loverink said a similar accident took place before, when a car accelerated past their parking spot, but the car hit an outwardly placed air conditioning unit into an apartment.
Police have the apartment window tarped off.
“This is an odd one,” Lovelette said. “You don’t see this every day.”