An Atlanta man is dead after suffering a freak accident in a local parking garage.
via People:
A driver, who has not been identified, died after getting crushed between his car and a payment machine on Thursday.
The Atlanta Police Department said that at 12:15 a.m. local time officers were alerted to an accident at 1197 Peachtree St. NE. Once at the scene, they were able to find the car and the driver. Per multiple local outlets, the incident happened near the Colony Square food hall in midtown.
The APD Accident Investigations Unit then arrived to figure out what happened. After a “preliminary investigation” they determined “the victim had opened his driver’s side door to reach the ticket machine that operates the exit gate of a parking garage. The vehicle moved forward while the victim was still partially outside of it which resulted in a collision and entrapment with the driver being pinned.”
APD says the investigation is “active and ongoing.” Colony Square did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request.
The accident comes after an Ohio woman suffered a similar accident in January 2021, when her head became trapped between her car and a payment machine in a parking garage.
Security footage shows the woman, identified by police as Victoria Strauss, exiting the parking garage at 45 Vine Street when she dropped her card while attempting to pay for parking.
As she opened her door and reached down to retrieve her card, Strauss accidentally accelerated, according to the Columbus Police Department.
The car collided with the payment kiosk, trapping Strauss’s head between the car door and the door frame. She was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
That March, her cause of death was revealed as blunt force trauma to the head, according to the Franklin County Coroner’s report, obtained by PEOPLE at the time.
Mechanical asphyxia was also listed as a significant condition that contributed to her death, but did not lead to the underlying cause. No drugs were detected in her system, but the coroner listed acute ethanol poisoning among their findings. Strauss had a blood alcohol level of 0.221.
Strauss was reportedly a Florida native and a graduate student at Ohio State University.
So sad. Also, so terrifying.
