The FedEx driver, right, described how fast the wrong-way Lexus S.U.V., at rear, had been going before it crashed into the white VW and his van.
BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | Canal St. around the Holland Tunnel entrance sees more than its fair share of traffic accidents. But a collision last Thursday evening at Canal and Hudson Sts. involving a speeding wrong-way car was scarier than usual, and left five people injured.
An eastbound gray Lexus S.U.V. on Canal St. zoomed over the sidewalk at the intersection’s southwest corner and slammed into a white VW and a FedEx van waiting at the red light on Hudson St.
Standing with her back against a building wall for support and wincing, the Lexus’s driver gestured that her midsection was in pain. “I lost control…the brake,” she explained, before saying she was in too much pain to speak more. E.M.T.’s carefully put her into a neck brace and strapped her onto a backboard and transported her to the hospital.
The FedEx driver seemed O.K. at first, walking around and describing how fast the Lexus had been going, but then said his left knee hurt. An E.M.T. felt the delivery driver’s neck to see if the vertebrae were all right, and soon he was also in a neck brace and on a backboard and en route to the hospital.
Three other victims were also taken for treatment. A Fire Department spokesperson said two people had serious injuries, and three people minor injuries. Engine 24 and Ladder 5 firefighters responded to the accident. Port Authority tow trucks carted off the damaged vehicles, a sand-like substance was put down to soak up the oil, and traffic flowed once again.
