Four people were injured, one critically, in a multi-car collision in Harlem Wednesday caused by an apparent medical episode suffered by one of the drivers, police and eyewitnesses said.
The crash took place at the intersection of West 119th Street and Lenox Avenue and left a woman in critical condition who was taken to Harlem Hospital. Three others, a woman and two men, were injured and taken to neighborhood hospitals in stable condition.
Locals looked on in shock at the carnage left following the four-car pileup. Debris was strewn across the roadway, consisting of twisted metal, shattered glass, items of clothing, and even oxygen masks—a sign that a major crash had taken place.
At the scene, the rear of a Ford pick-up truck was completely demolished, while two Nissans were left with their engine hoods lifted, doors wide open and air bags deployed. The front of another blue vehicle was entirely smashed inwards with pieces of the engine spewed onto the street.
“I was coming out of the train station and this vehicle that’s right here, I just saw the flames shoot from the vehicle,” Jerry Williams, a local resident said looking at the ruined vehicles sitting haphazardly at the Upper Manhattan intersection. “I have lived here all my life and I have never seen anything like this.”
While police say they are still piecing together what happened, sources within the department said that they believe one of the drivers suffered a medical episode around noon, possibly a seizure, that led to the devastation, something eyewitnesses at the scene corroborated.
“He had a seizure while he was driving and you know I have seizures and that’s one of the reasons why I stopped driving,” Williams added.
“It sounded like an explosion,” Wolfgang said, a resident of the area for over two decades who says that speeding has been an issue for some time. “We actually have an application that is in progress for a speed bump on our block. Something needs to happen to prevent situations like that in the future.”
NYPD’s Collision Investigation Squad is currently investigating the incident.
