A 76 year-old man lost control of his late-model Jeep Cherokee Tuesday afternoon on upper Whalley Avenue and hit four people from Chapel Haven, a nearby residential facility for adults with mental disabilities.
The accident happened around 1:30 p.m. Here’s what happened, according to District Manager Lt. Martin Tchakirides:
The driver was heading inbound toward downtown New Haven on Whalley. He passed Dayton Street.
“Right around Pio’s of Italy, for some reason he loses control of his vehicle. I don’t know if he fell asleep,” Tchakirides reported.
“He crosses over the shoulder, hops the curb, and there’s a group of folks from Chapel Haven on the sidewalk that are walking outbound, out toward Woodbridge.
“He goes over the shoulder, pops the curb, and strikes at least four of these individuals.”
The driver ended up in the parking lot of McDonald’s, where he slammed into two parked cars before his Cherokee stopped. Tchakirides said he didn’t know how fast the man was driving.
The driver was sent to the Veterans Administration hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. He’d recently had open-heart surgery.
Meanwhile, two of the Chapel Haven pedestrians went to the Hospital of St. Raphael, the other two to Yale-New Haven. All four were described as stable, with non-life-threatening injuries, although two were initially said to have sustained head injuries, according to Tchakirides.
Whalley was shut down to traffic for about an hour following the accident.