Ferndale car crash: Vehicle goes airborne, hits apartment building
Vehicle goes airborne in Michigan, hits apartment building
First responders were called to an apartment complex at 1400 W. Nine Mile around 10:30 a.m. after reports of a single-vehicle accident. At the scene, police officers found a vehicle flipped upside down and crashed through the wall of the building.
FERNDALE, Mich. (FOX 2) - A car went airborne before crashing into an apartment building in Ferndale on Tuesday morning, sending the driver to the hospital.
Timeline:
First responders were called to an apartment complex at 1400 W. Nine Mile around 10:30 a.m. after reports of a single-vehicle accident. At the scene, police officers found a vehicle flipped upside down and crashed through the wall of the building.
"Couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything, just a lot of smoke," said Adia Dobbins, who witnessed the crash. "I heard it before I saw it. I assumed it was just a really bad crash, and than all of a sudden, this poor man’s car came sailing through the air, it flipped and crashed, and I started praying."
The driver, a 38-year-old Southfield man, was conscious when he was pulled from the vehicle, according to a news release from Ferndale police. He suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Fortunately, no one else was hurt.
There were cameras all over the complex, and they captured the moment the airborne car collided with the building. That video can be viewed in the player above.
"You can see there are some bricks taken out here. I think it was the facade. So it came through here," said Ferndale Fire Chief Teresa Robinson. "We will be piecing it back together and get all the answers. I think a majority of the damage is where he impacted the building."
What's next:
Police are still working to determine what caused the 38-year-old driver from Southfield to lose control roughly a block away, travel up on the lawn, flip over, and crash.
The owner of the Ferndale 1 Apartments says he rushed over from Canton as soon as he heard what happened.
Preliminary details of the investigation reveal the driver was going west on Nine Mile when he crossed the eastbound lane before leaving the roadway near Forest Street.
Despite the crash, the building is structurally sound. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
The Source: A press release from Ferndale police and interview with the Ferndale Fire Department chief was used for this story.
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Driver flips vehicle, crashes into Ferndale apartment building
Investigators are working to piece together exactly what happened after a driver slammed into a Ferndale apartment building Tuesday morning.