The Acura owner thought the car was in park and couldn’t regain control fast enough when she hit the accelerator
February 8, 2024 at 20:39
A woman accidentally drove her Acura RDX SUV through a gas pump in a Boston neighborhood on Tuesday and sparked a huge fireball in the process. Surveillance video shows the explosion and the quick actions of one brave person who quickly responded. Despite the dramatic events, everyone managed to escape from the situation unscathed.
The crash happened around 7:15 at night on Tuesday at Alfa Auto Fuel in Roslindale, a residential neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. That’s when a woman driving an Acura RDX drove into the gas station parking lot, accidentally backed into a parked pickup truck, and then drove head-first into a gas pump. The impact created a blaze both at the now-former site of the pump and at the dislodged pump itself as well.
Read: Confused Ford Mustang Mach-E Crashes In Gas Station, Of All Places
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Arthur Mantas, a member of the family that owns the gas station leaped into action. He pulled a nearby fire extinguisher from its storage space and went to defeat the flames. He actually emptied the tank before the integrated gas station fire suppression system went off. According to Mantas, the system was quite powerful. “[It] knocked me to my knees. I had to cross the street. I couldn’t even breathe… I feel like I was stupid. I should have ran away.”
It’s unclear exactly why the driver made the multiple mistakes that they did, but according to Boston25News, police aren’t pressing charges. Evidently, the woman though that the car was in park and simply lost control when it lurched forward unexpectedly. She went to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries but was otherwise fine.
An accident like this demonstrates just how easy it is to lose control of a vehicle when something unexpected happens. It also puts a fresh perspective on accidents like the one actor Alan Ruck had recently with his Rivian R1T.
If an Acura SUV can be tough to manage when it accelerates unexpectedly, how much more so is that true of a vehicle that can accelerate much faster? We’re just glad that nobody was injured in this case.