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One woman was seriously injured when her car struck a transformer at Grossnickle Eye Center, Warsaw, Tuesday night. Police believe the accident may have been caused by mechanical failure.
Grace Bays, 68, was airlifted to Parkview Memorial Hospital, Fort Wayne, for foot injuries and is currently in fair condition in the intensive care unit. Her address was unavailable at press time.
Police reported Bays was at Kosciusko Community Hospital visiting her husband, who is a patient. Bays got in her car in the east parking lot of KCH and put it in reverse.
Bays told police the car revved and backed up almost 70 feet and struck a parked car in the row behind her. She told police she cannot remember the rest of the incident.
Police reported the car went into drive and sped more than 400 feet through the KCH parking lot, a grassy lot, and another KCH parking lot. The car then apparently hit the back of the Grossnickle building and struck the transformer that supplies power to the medical equipment in the building.
The Warsaw Police Department received an emergency call at 8:18 p.m. of an explosion in the area. But they said there was no explosion, just the crash caused by the impact.
Bays was trapped in the car for almost 45 minutes until a wrecker could pull her pinned car away from the transformer. Police were then able to pull her out through the passenger side door.
Police said the destroyed transformer did not cause power outages in the area, but electricity did blink for a moment.
A Warsaw Police officer investigating the crash said investigators are checking the car to see if the accelerator stuck and contributed to the accident.
The investigator said the car was apparently accelerating the entire time Bays was driving it, causing the tires to spin when the car was in reverse and drive gears.
