Remembering some of the weirdest crashes and vehicle mishaps in Western Pa.
An SUV that broke through the ice on North Park Lake in McCandless got plenty of attention Thursday, but that’s just the latest of many strange incidents involving cars, SUVs, trucks and buses in the region.
Western Pennsylvania drivers have a knack for getting their vehicles into odd situations. Here’s a look at some of the weirdest places they’ve ended up.
Six stories below a parking garage
In May 2010, an SUV plunged from the sixth level of Downtown Pittsburgh’s Sixth & Penn Garage, becoming wedged between two buildings in Charette Way.
The SUV hit a van before crashing through the guard rail, according to investigators at the time.
The driver and a passenger were injured.
Highland Park fountain
In September 2013, a driver lost control of his SUV, tore through flower beds and crashed into a wrought-iron bench before ramping off a low, sloped wall in Pittsburgh’s Highland Park. The SUV flew about 50 feet over a reflecting pond before landing on its roof — directly on top of the fountain at the park’s entrance
Officials said the incident likely began when the driver, who was in his 70s, had a medical emergency. The driver was taken to the hospital in stable condition.
An above-ground swimming pool
In May 2017, an 18-year-old driver hydroplaned on a wet road in North Union, Fayette County. He lost control of the car, which went airborne, landed on a wooden deck and fell into the above-ground swimming pool of a home on Rolling Hill State Road.
The car was almost completely submerged, but nobody was hurt.
Stuck on a memorial cannon
A Port Authority of Allegheny County bus driver lost control in August 2017, striking several vehicles near the corner of Brookline Boulevard, Chelton Avenue and Queensboro Avenue. The bus came to a stop when it struck a war memorial cannon from World War I on display in a parklet.
The cannon was lodged in the bus window.
One person suffered a minor injury.
The Port Authority fired the driver, Nicole P. Lawrence, after an investigation found she was speeding and not wearing a seat belt.
The Port Authority paid to repair the cannon.
A Giant Eagle roof — twice
In September 2018, a speeding driver lost control at a bend in Greenfield Avenue in Greenfield, which is on a hillside overlooking the Giant Eagle store on Murray Avenue.
The car struck a curb, went airborne, and landed on Giant Eagle’s roof.
The driver, who was not identified, was arrested for driving under the influence.
Nobody was hurt.
It wasn’t the first time.
In March 2016, the driver of an SUV lost control on the same stretch of road. The SUV landed on the store’s roof, leaking oil and gas into the store. Nobody was hurt, and the store reopened later that morning.
The bottom of the Monongahela River
An 18-year-old driver stopped his parents’ Nissan at the top of a boat ram in New Eagle, Washington County, in April 2019. When he got out of the car, it started rolling down the ramp. It didn’t stop until it was underwater, about 100 feet from shore.
A first attempt to pull the car from the river failed when a tow cable snapped. Recovery efforts were temporarily called off when a storm rolled in.
Two days after the incident, crews used a heavy-duty tow truck to successfully fish the car from the river.
The mother of all sinkholes
Any list of the strangest vehicular incidents in Western Pennsylvania would be incomplete without a mention of Pittsburgh’s most famous bus and Pittsburgh’s most famous sinkhole.
The sinkhole — 100 feet long and 20 feet deep — opened at the corner of 10th Street and Penn Avenue in Downtown in October 2019, swallowing the back of a Port Authority bus that was waiting to cross Penn Avenue. Nobody was seriously hurt.
The incident made national news and dominated social media for days. People created Halloween costumes and Christmas decorations of the cockeyed bus.
It took a 300-ton crane to pull the 14-ton bus out of the hole.
The hole was filled, and the road reopened in October 2020.
North Park Lake
A 23-year-old McCandless man attempted to drive his SUV across frozen North Park Lake in McCandless late Wednesday night.
The vehicle became partially submerged when one of its wheels broke through the ice.
The driver was uninjured. He told investigators he mistook the lake for a parking lot.
After several unsuccessful attempts to remove the SUV, crews eventually used tow straps to drag it to shore.
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