Driver Hits Car Into Building

When Timothy Smith decided to yield to a reversing motorist in a parking lot near Mary Washington Hospital yesterday, he thought he was simply providing a common roadway courtesy. But his act of vehicular kindness rewarded him with perhaps the best view of a spectacular car crash in which the front entrance of a medical office building was trashed when the reversing car sped out of the space and pushed another car into the building. 

The incident occurred shortly before 3 p.m. on Tuesday, July 26. Smith, a Fredericksburg resident, was leaving the offices at 211 Park Hill Drive. The building faces a long, rectangular parking lot with four rows of parking divided in the middle by a grassy raised median strip. Smith was exiting the parking lot in the lane farthest from the entrance to 211 Park Hill Drive when he saw a blue Oldsmobile Nintey Eight backing out of a parking spot. Smith stopped and signaled to the driver that it was okay to back out. Smith says the car suddenly sped backwards over the median strip, threading the needle between four parked cars before striking a green 2003 Volkswagen Passat and shoving it backwards into the entrance of 211 Park Hill Drive, which houses the offices of Roberts Home Medical and Home and Heart Medical Services. The driver of the Oldsmobile then pulled his car forward into a parking space and shut down his car. 

Smith says he immediately got out of his car and ran to investigate. He found the driver a little shaken up, and says the driver told him that he accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake. 

Inside the building were Home and Heart Medical Services mother/daughter co-workers Stephanie and Katie Belman. The Belman's own the Passat, but daughter Katie primarily drives it. Stephanie did not see the incident, but reports feeling the building shake in her office. 

"I thought a bomb had hit us," said Stephanie. 

When they, and the rest of the office, came to see the commotion they discovered their car sticking back-end in inside the building. The Belman's guess that their car is totaled. The Oldsmobile, at first glance, seemed only to have a scratch on the bumper and a wrecked undercarriage. 

Police on scene did not release the name of the driver, nor did they speculate to the press about what charges the driver might face. 

City personnel from building and development services were on hand to assist rescue personnel with removing the car and stabilizing the building. 

Police say that no one was injured in the incident.