PHOTOS: 83-Year-Old Drives into House Along Brownsville Road

An elderly woman from South Park Township is in fair condition at UPMC Mercy Hospital after driving through two yards and into a home along the 4700 block of Brownsville Road in on Wednesday.

The accident, which involved only the 83-year-old woman's vehicle, happened shortly before 6 p.m. near the intersection of Brownsville and Carlyn Drive. She was her car's only occupant.

The woman's driver's-side door ended up on the ground, trapping her inside until emergency workers arrived to cut through the car and release her. She was then taken by a crew from to Mercy Hospital.

Part of Brownsville traffic was then blocked for a time as the car was righted and taken away.

The driver left Brownsville while she was heading south toward Curry Hollow Road and mysteriously veered into the northbound lane of traffic before going through the front yards of 4789 and 4793 Brownsville. Her car did not come to a stop until it hit the front left corner of Dale and Sally Douglas' home at 4793 Brownsville.

As of 2 p.m. on Thursday, tire tracks are still visible across both yards, and glass and other pieces of the woman's car remain in the Douglases' yard while they wait for insurance adjusters to arrive.

The Douglases were both home when the accident occurred but did not directly witness it and are waiting to hear from Whitehall police as to the official cause of the crash.

Chief Donald R. Dolfi said on Thursday that the incident is under investigation.

Dale Douglas said on Thursday that direct witnesses told him that they saw the woman's car swerving in and out of its own lane of traffic before going completely out of control and into the yards.

Dale had just retrieved his home's mail minutes before the accident. He would have been directly in the line of fire.

"It happened so fast," Sally said, "and when it happened, I said, 'Somebody went into the house,' because the whole house seemed to shake.

"(Dale) says to me, 'Nobody ran into the house,' and then, he opens the door and says, 'Somebody ran into the house!'

"Out here (on busy Brownsville), it's something I've always worried about."

Whitehall firefighters arrived at the scene shortly after the wreck, but Dolfi said that there was no fire to put out.

The Douglases said that the woman's car was smoking while it was on its side but that an unknown neighbor or driver quickly put the potential fire out with an extinguisher.

Read through other Whitehall police items here.

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