Video: Woman in BMW plunges seven floors off garage and lives
The driver of an SUV is turning around in an alleyway when he hears something and stops — about that time a BMW comes sailing out of the sky, crashes nose first on the ground and slams into him.
The frightful scene unfolds in surveillance video released by the Austin Police Department on Thursday.
The BMW fell seven floors out of a parking garage in downtown Austin, smashing onto the pavement, slamming into the SUV and coming to rest on its roof, KXAN reported.
The unidentified woman inside was seriously injured but survived, police confirmed Friday. She had accidentally hit the gas pedal instead of the brakes and smashed through the garage cable barriers.
The driver of the SUV, William Burch, was unhurt.
He told KXAN he was on the phone with his mother when it happened. “I can just imagine what she was thinking when I had said, ‘A car just landed on me, I gotta go,’ ” he said.
Burch told Fox 7 afterward, “It’s amazing I’m still alive.”
The video captures the startling crash and shows onlookers rushing to help the woman trapped in the BMW.
“She was upside down,” Burch told Fox 7. “They had to pull her out from her seatbelt and her head was bloody and they pulled her off to the side under the awning. I rushed back over here and called my wife to let her know I was OK.”
The incident happened July 13 at the Littlefield Garage at 6th and Brazos streets, according to Fox 7. A similar incident happened at the parking garage on Sept. 9, when a 24-year-old who couldn’t stop his Toyota 4Runner went over the edge and dangled along the side of the building, held by a cable wire that had wrapped around one of the wheels, KXAN reported.
The owner of the parking garage, GTT Parking LP, met with the Austin Code Department and promised to make changes to improve safety, KXAN said. In the meantime, temporary plastic barriers filled with water have been placed on every floor to serve as buffers between cars and cables.
Tom Uhler: 817-390-7832, @tomuh
This story was originally published August 11, 2017 at 9:55 AM with the headline "Video: Woman in BMW plunges seven floors off garage and lives."