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Car plunges from garage; driver dies

By Virginia de Leon
Staff writer
April 8, 2006

A 62-year-old woman from Pullman was killed today after her car fell from the fifth level of the River Park Square parking garage.

Jo Savage’s dark-blue Subaru Outback apparently was driven off the garage’s pink level, knocking down a concrete wall before crashing to the ground, witnesses said.

The car landed upside down at the top of the parking ramp on Spokane Falls Boulevard, trapping Savage inside. She was breathing but unconscious when help arrived at 12:14, just a few minutes after the accident, said Assistant Chief Brian Schaeffer of the Spokane Fire Department. It took about 30 minutes to remove her from the metal wreckage, he said. She was transported to Sacred Heart Medical Center, but later died.

“I heard a big crash, then a tire squealing like she didn’t let off the gas,” said Rick Andreas, a witness who had just parked his car about 50 feet away from where the station wagon plunged. “Then there was the screeching of the chain link fence as the car went over.” He didn’t see the driver. “By the time I looked, she had already gone over the edge.”

“It was a horrific sound — a lot of metal and concrete,” said Andreas’ wife, Staci. “People were screaming. I thought the building was collapsing.”

Jeremy Boedigheimer, who was headed west on Spokane Falls Boulevard when the accident happened, said he saw the car falling backwards. A solid piece of concrete with a pink stripe across the top remained hanging from the building as passers-by flocked to the scene.

The station wagon was a mangle of metal when it plunged to the ground. Although paramedics were able to treat the woman, it took about half an hour for firefighters to extricate parts of the car away from her in order to safely remove her from the wreckage.

The cause of the accident is under investigation. It was not known whether the woman suffered from any medical conditions. Schaeffer said officials have contacted the city’s building engineers to ensure the building’s safety.

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