Four people were hospitalized Tuesday evening after a woman crashed her car into a North New Hyde Park bus stop, police said.
The 88-year-old woman was heading east on Union Turnpike at 5:05 p.m. when a problem with her tire caused her to veer off the road and smash into the bus stop near Lake Success Shopping Center, Nassau County police said.
The driver’s 2009 Toyota Corolla hit three people waiting for a Nassau Inter-County Express bus and knocked over the steel and glass bus shelter, police said.
One of the pedestrians, a 20-year-old woman, broke her leg and shattered her pelvis, police said. Another woman, 63, had some pain, a 43-year-old man had cuts on his head and the driver complained of chest pain, police said.
Police impounded the woman’s car for safety and brake checks, police said.
“It was a pretty freaky accident,” said Deputy Chief Brian Stone of the Manhasset-Lakeville Fire Department.
Ambulances from Nassau County, Northwell Health and the New Hyde Park Fire Department took the people to area hospitals. Several officers, seven Manhasset-Lakeville firefighters, four New Hyde Park Fire Department first-responders and three Northwell medics responded to the scene, Stone said.
The car went over an embankment and landed in the parking lot behind the bus shelter, Stone said. The crash destroyed the shelter and scattered glass shards across the parking lot, he said.
“Luckily there were no cars in that parking lot, otherwise the car would have landed on top of them,” Stone said.
Stone said the accident closed one eastbound lane on Union Turnpike, slowing down traffic at an already busy North New Hyde Park intersection.
“Five o’clock on Union Turnpike and Marcus Avenue, that’s a standstill anyway, so it definitely impacted traffic,” said a local resident, Marianna Wohlgemuth. “But most of us locals don’t go near there at five o’clock. We know better.”
The debris from the damaged bus shelter was gone on Wednesday morning, Wohlgemuth said.
