It sounded like gunshots. It woke up the block.
We gathered out on Central Avenue and Burton Street, in the Westville neighborhood, under the glow of streetlights. It was around 1:30 a.m. Monday. Our imaginations ran: We’d heard crashes and pops, and now a car was smashed into a utility pole on Burton.
Soon police sirens were heard in the distance. Cops and emergency crews arrived. They smashed the window open to the car, pulled out the driver. She was barely breathing. We stole nervous glances, hoping she’d be all right. The cops kept us from getting too close because of potential danger from the damaged pole and low-hanging utility wires. Workers from SBC and United Illuminating arrived to repair the pole.
As it turned out, we hadn’t heard gunshots. A patron of Delaney’s bar down the road happened to be walking on the block when the accident occurred. He saw the whole thing. The woman behind the wheel of a speeding car had lost control. First she smashed into the rear of a parked station wagon on Central. Turns out it was our car.
Then she skidded across the street, over the sidewalk, through the front lawn of local attorney Tony Wallace, then onto Burton, where she rammed into the utility pole.
The driver was a 40-year-old woman from Bethany. Police say she was semi-conscious and unable to talk when they found her at the scene; they describe her injuries as non-life-threatening. She remained in Yale-New Haven Hospital as of mid-day Monday. Here’s wishing her a full recovery.
