Driver in Zombie Walk Crash Explains His Side of Story

The deaf man whose car struck a pedestrian near Comic-Con has opened up about the incident, telling an online news site that his family's safety was his priority.

On Saturday, July 26, a black Honda Accord was stopped near 2nd and Island Avenues and waiting for participants of the Zombie Walk to cross the intersection.

Video from witnesses shows the car suddenly move forward, rolling through the crowd. A 64-year-old woman was injured. San Diego police said she was taken to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Two other people suffered minor injuries. 

The 48-year-old driver, a deaf man, was not cited and not arrested, officials tell NBC 7.

He was not identified in the interview with iDeaf News but did give his side of the story. 

The interview, done in American Sign Language and captioned by someone at the online news site, runs five minutes and covers what happened in the moments before the crash to how San Diego police handled the situation.

β€œI panicked about my family. Everything was a blur about what happened to this woman," the driver signed according to the report.

He said he was leaving Comic-Con after having worked as a volunteer. In his car were his girlfriend, his girlfriend's sister and her son.

As he was waiting at the intersection, he said a woman walked up to the car to speak to him. He decided to open the window and ask someone what was going on.

At that point, the driver says he became confused and describes people sitting and leaning on his car and laughing at him.

β€œI couldn’t trust anything,” the driver signed according to the report.

He said when he honked his horn and moved slowly, one man punched his front window and another person opened a back door.

"That’s when I plowed my car through the crowd. I had to do this to save my family," the report quotes him as saying. "Once they broke my front window and the car door opened, I had to move my car quickly."

New videos of the San Diego Zombie Walk reveal a different account of what happened when a deaf family drove into a crowd near Comic-Con. NBC 7’s Liberty Zabala has the video and spoke with witnesses at the scene.

In the interview, the driver goes on to say that he was unaware he had struck someone until he talked with a police officer away from the crowd.

The driver said he has cried over the incident and lost sleep.

β€œShe is all I can think about,” he signed according to the report.

According to the SDPD, several people from the crowd surrounded the car and began punching it, shattering the windshield.

The is video captured Saturday, July 26, 2014. A deaf family with small children was stopped near Second and Island Avenue, where people were waiting for the Zombie Walk parade to cross. After several minutes, the driver slowly rolled forward, then accelerated through the crowd. One woman was injured.

Witnesses in the crowd gave a different account. 

Diana Jackson, who said she was about 10 people away, told NBC 7 on Facebook that the driver took off with such aggression "that his tires squealed."

Counter to police information, witness Sean Foley said the driver's window was broken after he hit people in the crowd, not before. 

According to the Twitter page for the SDZombieWalk, participants of the event had nothing to do with the incident.

While the incident remains under investigation, a San Diego police spokesperson told NBC 7 Thursday that the driver has not been cited.

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