A distracted driver on a cell phone may to blame for a crash that spun a car out of control and sent it barreling towards a man in a wheelchair who was crossing the street.
"I heard the accident. It sounded like it was going a long time, a lot of scraping going on and then I saw what happened," witness Joshua Flowers said.
Taking measurements and interviewing witnesses, police gathered evidence after the two-car crash shut down the intersection of 9th and E Street downtown. Witnesses say the cars T-boned and one of them lost control, slamming into the man in the wheelchair.
"My understanding is he was underneath the car, under the carriage of the vehicle," Sgt. Art Doherty said.
Flowers envisioned the worst as he watched witnesses rush to help.
"Basically, it was pretty incredible. I saw like twenty people run over and all together lift up the car and get him out of there," he said.
It turns out the man suffered facial fractures, but is expected to survive.
Witnesses told police the driver who caused the accident was on his cell phone.
"We're looking through the phone at this point and trying to narrow it down to find out when the call came in and at what point the phone was being used," Sgt. Doherty said.
