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Teen Hits Gas Instead of Brake, Drives Off Parking Garage

Young Houston driver escaped with just minor injuries after car fell 7 stories
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 28, 2017 12:38 PM CST

A Houston-area teen may not feel like watching any of the Fast & Furious franchise after his quick-but-terrifying experience at a local parking garage over the weekend. Firefighters tell KHOU it appears the teen mistakenly accelerated instead of stepping on the brake while on the roof of the garage, sending his car plummeting seven stories down, flipping and landing upside down on top of a shopping center and embedding itself into the roof. When firefighters rushed to the scene, they found the teen inside Westheimer Plumbing and Hardware, seemingly in shock but otherwise only minorly injured, NBC News reports. "God was on his side today," Houston Fire Department Capt. Al Castillo says.

One local on his way to work witnessed the heart-stopping plunge, describing it as being "like a movie," he tells KPRC, which reports that a bunch of businesses in the shopping center remained closed as of Monday evening due to damages. The owner of the hardware store tells FOX6 he thought someone was messing with him when he got the phone call at his daughter's bridal shower saying there was a car on the roof of his business. When he arrived at the store and saw what had happened, he noted it was "unbelievable" the driver, who was locked inside the store until he was rescued, could have survived. Houston cops say the teen confirmed to them that he stepped on the gas by mistake. The car was eventually dislodged with the help of a crane. (There's no school on Sunday, so we can't blame an early start for the accident.)

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