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This photo shows an accident site at a senior community center in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on Monday. (Gyeonggi-do Fire Department) |
An elderly woman was killed and three others injured Monday after a car driven by a 91-year-old man rammed into people at a senior community center in a city south of Seoul, police said.
The crash happened at around noon at a parking lot in a senior community center in Bundang, when the driver, only identified by his last name Park, was reversing and his vehicle instantly ran over four elderly people who were walking toward the building, the police said.
An 80-something-year-old woman was taken to a hospital under cardiac arrest and later pronounced dead. Three others, in their 70s and 80s, were being treated for the injuries they sustained in the accident, with one of them under serious condition.
The driver complained of back pain and was also moved to a hospital.
The victims had just gotten off a shuttle bus to walk toward the welfare center building for a singing class.
Police suspect the driver stepped on the gas while the car was in the reverse gear.
The impact of the crash was so strong that it knocked down the metal poles that had been installed to mark the parking lines before the car hit the victims, the police said.
Police found no sign of drunk driving.
Police said a probe was under way to determine the exact cause of the accident and they expect it will not take long as a surveillance camera was installed at the building.
Meanwhile, the number of accidents caused by senior drivers aged 65 or older hit 34,652 cases in 2022, the highest since the record was made public by the Road Traffic Authority in 2005. (Yonhap)
