On Saturday around 5:30 p.m., a white Toyota SUV hit a stone barrier, flipped over, and rolled three times about 200 feet down into a ravine off of Alameda Padre Serra (APS), near Loma Media Road.
A resident of the neighborhood, Kris Zacharias, said that he did not see the incident, but heard the vehicle crashing down the hillside and subsequent sirens as emergency personnel arrived at the scene.
When Zacharias went outside to see the commotion, his neighbor, who lives directly next to the ravine, was offering water to a man sitting in her driveway. That man, wearing sweats and a white backpack, turned out to be the driver of the Toyota and was left unscathed, which police reports confirm.
“He seemed totally fine. I wouldn’t have ever imagined that guy walked away from that,” said Zacharias, who briefly spoke with the driver.
According to neighbors and the Santa Barbara Police Department, only one vehicle was involved in the crash, and the driver was the only person in the Toyota at the time of the crash. APS was closed for about an hour as crews retrieved the vehicle by crane, and was reopened about 7:30 p.m. that evening. SBPB says that a DUI is not suspected, and that the incident is still under investigation.
Zacharias said that it is common to see drivers speeding around APS’s turns, and that “other cars have rolled over the median here before.”
[Click to expand] Credit: Courtesy Kris Zacharias
The old stone barrier lining the roadside where the Toyota made impact is now about halfway collapsed and in need of repair. “I would have never imagined that a car would hit that coming around a corner, and it would go through all those heavy stones,” he said.
“The fact that he missed all those giant boulders, and the way he landed and rolled — it’s a miracle that guy is alive,” said Zacharias.
You must be logged in to post a comment.