Water gushes out of a hole in the ground on the side of Nashville Avenue after a car crashed into a hydrant there, witnesses said. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
A car careening down Nashville Avenue on Saturday afternoon narrowly missed a group of people standing on the sidewalk and uprooted a fire hydrant before crashing into a parked car, witnesses said.
Joe Grady of Mobile and two friends had just gotten out of his car in front of a house in the 1700 block of Nashville around 1 p.m. when they saw a silver Infiniti heading toward them at high speed, he said afterward.
“He came swooping on in, nailed the fire hydrant and just missed us,” Grady said.
After the car was towed, the hydrant remained on the side of Nashville Avenue as water poured around it. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
The car came to a stop when it crashed into Grady’s vehicle, and he went to check on the driver, he said. The man was conscious, but not responding to questions, so despite their fear of a fire they did not attempt to move the man and waited for paramedics to arrive, Grady said. The injured driver had begun talking by the time he was taken to the hospital, Grady noted.
The collision ripped not only the hydrant itself but about three feet of pipe below it out of the ground, leaving water gushing upward over the grass. Much of it poured into a nearby storm drain a few feet away, but some runoff spread the length of the block.
turned on Nashville just after the fire engine, police,etc. had arrived.
the street was blocked but we were able to exit after the first block.
what was the cause and what`s the latest on the driver?