A driver who careened onto a sidewalk, took out scaffolding and a tree, and smashed into another car in Nob Hill early Saturday ran away before cops showed up.
Firefighters had to use the jaws of life to remove three people from the wreckage at Van Ness Avenue and Sacramento Street, where authorities say the crash took place just before 2 a.m.
Ambulances rushed the three people extracted from the crumpled cars to a nearby hospital with serious injuries, according to the San Francisco Fire Department. A police spokesperson said the injuries weren’t life-threatening.
A fourth person — one of the drivers — fled before authorities arrived, police said. SFPD have yet to identify a suspect.
The commotion, dramatic rescue and debris-scattered aftermath prompted several people to post photos and descriptions online.
“I was sleeping and woke up from a crazy loud collision that sounded like two goddamn shipping containers falling over or something,” a Redditor wrote.
One car was a Tesla, they said. The other, which was too badly mangled to determine the make, “took out a few support beams, a tree and a bunch of shit on the sidewalk,” they added.
Another Redditor who said they live right above the scene of the crash said the noise woke them up.
“We jumped out of bed immediately just after it happened,” they wrote. “Prior to the crash there had been a bunch of squealing tires off and on, so I figured there was some street racing go on. I watched two people get pulled out of the black car. Paramedics were careful with stabilizing necks, but they were not rushing/doing any lifesaving on the street. One guy actually was standing when they got out.”
One car briefly caught fire, authorities said, but firefighters quickly extinguished it.
The collision culminates an unusually violent week on San Francisco’s streets.
A car knocked the teeth out of a cyclist in a suspected hit-and-run near Fisherman’s Wharf Thursday night. The next day, a car fatally struck a pedestrian on Geary Boulevard. On Tuesday, a dump truck killed a 70-year-old man in Cole Valley.
