A man was killed Saturday in Manhasset when he lost control of the car he was driving and crashed through a community garden and into the side wall of an auto repair shop, police said.
Police said the victim, who was identified only as a 55-year-old male, was driving a 2011 Nissan Maxima westbound on Northern Boulevard and lost control of the vehicle just east of East Shore Road at around 8:30 a.m.
According to reports, the man went airborne and hit several other cars before slamming into the garage entrance of Bodyworks Unlimited, at 3 East Shore Road near the border of Great Neck.
Manhasset-Lakeville Fire Department companies 2, 3 and 5 as well as the ambulance unit responded, but police said the man suffered an undisclosed medical emergency and was pronounced at the scene.
“In my left side mirror, I saw something flying in the air and I didn’t realize what it was,” witness Matt Moran, 75, of Manhattan told Newsday. “It was like a rocket. The car was flying and hit two or three cars, including mine. Then it ran into the front of the shop. It sounded like a bomb.”
Another witness, 32-year-old Karim Fahmy of Great Neck, told Newsday the Maxima drove past him on Northern Boulevard, missed a curve and rode through a small park near the East Shore Road intersection.
“He hit benches in the park and part of a wall and the car went flying” off an elevated area in the park, Fahmy told Newsday. “It was so high in the air, the bottom of it scraped the top of a yield sign.”
No other injuries were reported and police said no criminality was apparent.
