Watch out for That Tree!

Not a great photo - taken w/Craig's cell phone from our front window

It was a beautiful day today, cool enough to open the windows. I was working on an assignment for work and Craig was relaxing, watching the end of the Olympics when we heard a loud smash. We figured it was a car accident up at that unseen corner - it's a busy street with low visibility and there have been several accidents there in the past. Craig glanced out of the window and saw a tire rolling down the street and had to get up to check it out. That's when he saw the above scene, with the junky gray Oldsmobile meeting up with the innocent tree head-on. Needless to say the tree, although bruised, will live to see another day. The car, no doubt, will not.

You can see the hood is pretty smashed up, and just to the left of where the shot was was the hubcap from the tire that hit. The tire came off completely. Upon hitting the tree the driver attempted to restart the car and back up, but that did not work, since he was sans one essential tire, and the axle was pretty messed up too (we saw that when the tow-truck did it's thing). His windshield wipers came on and it took him a while to figure out how to make them stop. The passenger was hunched over sideways and bleeding. I can't be sure if she had a seat belt on or not, but her chin clearly smashed into the dash and it looked like her head may have hit the windshield. She got to leave the scene a short time later, in the back of an ambulance.

Craig called the police and also requested paramedics. We live on the border between two cities, and both cities sent members of their police force to the scene. We also had a fire truck and ambulance show up. In all I believe there were 5 police cars (including vans & SUV's) one large fire truck and the ambulance. After the fire truck left the tow showed up.

The driver walked away, pink ticket in hand. We're not sure where he went, but he wasn't arrested. He did find some flip-flops to throw on and walk away in. Which is good for him because there was a lot of broken glass on the street.