PORT HADLOCK — In an unusual coincidence, two unrelated wrecks on the same day and place sent two pedestrians and a driver to hospitals last week.
The two wrecks Thursday afternoon were both in the parking lot of the QFC grocery store in Port Hadlock.
One was in the early afternoon, and another was late in the day.
“Both involved older drivers, and it appears there was some confusion between the gas pedal and the brake pedal, or with being startled,” said Bill Beezley, spokesman for East Jefferson Fire-Rescue.
Both women who were hit by cars were seated at the time, one in a bus stop shelter facing Irondale Road and the other on a porch swing in front of the QFC store, according to East Jefferson Fire-Rescue.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is investigating both wrecks at the store at 1890 Irondale Road. No additional information was available Saturday.
The Fire Department did not identify anyone involved in the wrecks. Without identifications, hospitals will not provide conditions.
Car hit bus stop, spokesman says
The first wreck occurred at about 1:15 p.m. when a car backed into a Jefferson Transit bus stop, hitting an unidentified woman bicyclist who was seated in the bus shelter, Beezley said.
The woman was taken to Jefferson Healthcare hospital with possible lower back and neck injuries, he said in a statement.
A second person in the bus shelter refused medical treatment, he added.
Witnesses told Fire Department personnel that the wreck started when an elderly driver of a Chevrolet Lumina backed out of a parking space near the front of the QFC building.
The driver of a vehicle behind the Lumina saw an impending collision and honked her horn to warn him.
The driver apparently didn’t hear her horn and continued backing up until he struck her car, Beezley said.
The driver of the second vehicle continued to honk, and the Lumina driver, apparently startled by the horn, quickly placed his car in drive and gunned the engine, he said.
The car raced forward over the parking space curb, through the parking space on the other side and into the left rear panel of a Subaru Outback parked directly behind the bus shelter.
The force of the impact spun the rear of the Subaru around and into the bus shelter, destroying it and striking its occupants, Beezley said.
The driver of Lumina continued into the road, eventually slowed down and returned to the parking lot, Beezley said.
Fire Chief Gordon Pomeroy was driving by when he witnessed the accident.
“I saw a woman fly into the air and a car exiting QFC parking lot at a high rate of speed,” Pomeroy said.
“I got on the radio and called in the accident to bring in our people,” he added.
Beezely noted that having Pomeroy already at the scene enabled the Fire Department to respond very quickly.
Hit in a swing
East Jefferson Fire-Rescue crews were called to the QFC a second time Thursday at about 6 p.m.
An unidentified 51-year-old Port Hadlock woman was seated in an outdoor swing chair in front of QFC when she was struck by a car, Beezley said.
She suffered a compound fracture to her right femur and a tibia-fibula fracture to her left leg, and was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, he said.
East Jefferson Fire-Rescue arrived to find her conscious and alert.
“My legs are broken in half,” Beezley said the woman told firefighters.
The driver of the car — who also was unidentified — complained of chest pain and was taken to Jefferson Healthcare.
Witnesses told Fire Department personnel that a woman was sitting in an outdoor swing chair on the sidewalk in front of QFC when another woman got into a Mazda 929 parked immediately in front of the store, placed it in drive and accelerated.
The car jumped the curb onto the sidewalk, ran through a sidewalk display of plants for sale, struck the woman sitting in the swing and rammed into the front of the store, pinning the woman underneath the vehicle, Beezley said.
A QFC employee told emergency medical technicians that he and others yelled at the driver to stop her car, but she continued pressing the accelerator, with rear wheels smoking and spinning in place, while the woman who had been hit remained trapped under the front of the vehicle.
Eventually, the driver of the Mazda placed the car in neutral while store employees and bystanders lifted the front of the vehicle off the trapped woman and pulled her to safety, Beezley said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
