- Two residents were killed when a car crashed into a nursing home in San Jose. (Photo: ABC News)
Two nursing home residents died after a car crashed into the Amberwood Gardens facility Saturday morning in San Jose. The 90-year-old driver apparently mistook the gas pedal for the brake.
• A 90-year-old woman went to a nursing home to visit family members. She pulled into a parking spot in front of the building and accidentally hit the gas pedal instead of the brake.
• The vehicle jumped the concrete parking block, lurched between two trees, smashed through a plate glass window, and went barreling into an exercise room, striking several residents.
• Two residents died and five others were injured.
The fatal accident occurred at about 9:45 a.m., according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.
An elderly driver who was visiting a family member in the skilled nursing facility pulled her car into a handicapped parking spot directly in front of a wall with a large window.
She drove the vehicle up to the cement parking block and then apparently hit the gas pedal, thinking it was the brake.
The vehicle suddenly jumped over the parking block, lurched between two small trees and crashed through the wall into the exercise room, nursing home director Stephen Hooker told the San Jose Mercury News.
About a dozen people were in the room, getting ready for a seated exercise class to begin. Activity leader Eric Chin was shocked when the car suddenly smashed through the plate glass window and came barreling into the room.
“I turned around and saw this car in the room 10 feet from me,” Chin said. “You could hear glass breaking. A whole chunk of wall was gone. It was scary.”
The residents — most of whom have Alzheimer’s Disease or other forms of dementia — were seated in wheelchairs, and were not able to move out of the way. Five of them suffered minor injuries, and two died.
San Jose Police Sgt. Jason Dwyer said 88-year-old Esther Bocanegra died Saturday. He said 100-year-old Suzanne Infante suffered major injuries but initially was expected to survive. Due to her age, however, she was unable to recover from the trauma. She died Sunday.
San Jose Fire Department spokesperson Mary Gutierrez said all of the residents were evacuated for about an hour while the structure was evaluated for safety. The accident was extremely traumatic for residents, who have dementia. Hooker said both residents and the staff were “just devastated.” He brought in a psychologist on Sunday to help them through the trauma and grief.
Some family members blamed the facility for putting parking spots directly in front of plate glass windows, but a fire department spokesman said he did not believe that was a serious safety issue.
Officials ruled out drugs and alcohol as factors in the tragic accident.
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