A man and a woman were seriously injured in a rollover crash that Tuesday afternoon trapped the woman inside the car for more than an hour, police said.
The 27-year-old man was driving the 2014 Infinity Q50 when he lost control, slid sideways into the center median and struck a tree on the passenger said, San Diego police Officer Dino Delimitros said.
The tree fell on the of the car, trapping both the man and his female passenger. The man was quickly rescued and transported to an area hospital with serious, but non-life-threatening injuries.
The woman was trapped in the car for more than an hour as San Diego Fire-Rescue firefighters worked to get her out, San Diego Fire-Rescue Battalion Chief John Fischer said.
"This was one of the longer extrication I've been on in quite some while," he said. "You can see from the footage, the car literally wrapped around the tree there and hit the tree hard enough to actually uproot the tree and tip the tree over. She ended up in the back seat with feet still trapped underneath and around gear shift in the dashboard in the front seat"
The woman was airlifted to the hospital with serious life-threatening injuries, Delimitros said.
She was conscious and talking to rescuers but she was "fairly critical," Fischer said.
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The crash happened near the intersection of Scripps Poway Parkway and Sunshine Peak Court.
The two were in town visiting relatives and sight-seeing, Santhosh Kathiresan said. He's friends with the two and was traveling behind them when they crashed.
The slippery roads caused the car to spin out of control, he said.
"It took an incredible amount of force to wrap the car around the tree that much and uproot the tree as well," Fischer said.
It was unclear how fast the car was going at the time of the crash. SDPD is investigating.
