The residential intersection of Juniper Boulevard South and 70th Street was blocked off for hours Friday morning after a car crashed into a tree at approximately 10:30 a.m., killing the driver.
“I was watering the flowers in my yard when I heard a big bang,” said a witness, who was standing about 15 feet from the site of the crash. “It’s a different sound when metal hits wood.”
He noted there are usually four cars parked in front of the tree on any given day, but today for some reason, all the spots were unoccupied.
Details on the cause of the crash were not yet available, as police are still investigating. An officer on the scene estimated that the male victim was in his sixties.
The witness pointed out that there was no collision except with the tree.
“He lost control. Maybe he had an attack or something,” he said.
The force of the impact was so great that the car was completely destroyed, and emergency crews had to cut the victim out of the wreckage. One of the car's headlights was still lying on the sidewalk on 70th Street, about 100 feet from the scene of the accident, hours after the incident.
The witness, who asked that his name not be printed, was surprised that no relatives of the victim had arrived nearly two hours after the accident, admitting that he himself was a little shaken up.
“Every accident is a shock because it’s something you don’t expect, and you try to wish it away, but it happens,” said the witness, adding that he was so close to the site that fluid from the car sprayed the back of his shirt. “If that tree hadn’t been there, I’d be dead.”
