At least seven people – including two children – were injured Friday morning in an accident involving two vehicles that sent car care to an outdoor dining room in Manhattan, police said.
The chain reaction occurred just after 8:30 a.m. when a white van hit a black sedan and tossed the car through the dining area at the intersection of East 50th Street and Second Avenue.
The van, which was traveling south in Second Avenue, continued and plowed into a fruit plow, sources said.
Witnesses said the van penetrated between 51st and 50th streets before coming to a stop at East 49th Street.
Juan Carlos Quispe, 44, said he missed his brother, who was waiting in East 50th Street and Second Avenue at the time.
“My brother said, ‘Hi Carlos, this is an accident,'” said Quispe, who came from Third Avenue. ‘When I arrived, I saw two small children on the sidewalk. They were scared.
They tremble. I saw no blood. ”
Quispe said he saw an Asian woman lying on her back near 49th and Second Avenue.
“She was shaking, shaking,” he recalled. His eyes were closed. She seems to be in pain. The ambulance comes and takes her away. People said she was going to recover because she was moving her hands and legs. ”
He added about his brother, “Thank God he’s OK. He could have been hit.”
Videos on the Citizen app show the dramatic aftermath – heaps of rubbish scattered in the intersection just outside a Starbucks, as well as a traffic light and street name sign overturned.
Airbags inside the sedan, which had damage to the front, were deployed.
A driver was arrested and was possibly under the influence, police said.
According to the FDNY, seven people – five adults and two children – were taken to Bellevue Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
One sustained a broken hip while the children scraped the fly agaric.
No one was outside in the dining area at the time of the crash, police said.