Taxi goes airborne, injuring five
Posted Oct 23, 2011 03:09:43 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Five people are recovering after a taxi went airborne in the city’s south end Saturday evening.
The cab driver had just picked up two people on Sawmill Road, when he had what appeared to be a seizure, and hit the gas pedal.
Paul Morneau with Ottawa Paramedics told 1310News the cab screeched across a parking lot and a raised section of grass, then launched into the air, flying towards a BMW parked in a driveway on the corner of Junction Street and Brookfield.
“Because he was airborne, he hit the top of the BMW, flipping it over onto its roof, and then he landed on top, so the cab was perched on top of the now flipped over BMW,” he said. “Luckily no one was in the BMW at the time. The gas pedal was apparently still depressed, because people were reporting that the tires were spinning, and spinning, and spinning and smoking.”
He said the owner of the BMW ran out of the home to help, when the front left tire of the taxi exploded, shooting a piece of shrapnel at his face.
“He was just visiting a friend, and then, obviously heard the crash and all the commotion outside and he sees his BMW flipped over and a taxi cab parked on top of it, tires spinning and an explosion,” he said.
The two taxi passengers, who were work colleagues, suffered minor injuries, while a bystander sustained a minor elbow injury.
He was trying to break the window of the cab to help get the passengers out.
The 36-year-old driver of the cab, was taken to hospital in serious, but stable condition.
