A parking lot mishap at Springfield Mall, Monday, March 10, left a car dangling from a parking lot retaining wall, the driver treated for injuries and authorities trying to piece together the series of events.
Springfield resident Melanie Thielman had just parked her car in the hillside parking spaces outside J.C. Penney's and was about to go through the mall door with her daughter Erika, 12, when they heard a commotion.
"It was so loud and crazy, the car was going so fast. She went up the hill and the car turned sideways, it was unbelievable," she said.
The car nicked Thielman's bumper before hitting a Honda and ending up hanging partially into the parking garage. Police and rescue workers arrived on the scene and took the driver into the ambulance and off to the Inova Healthplex, just east of the mall.
"The only thing I can think of she stepped on the gas instead of the brake," Thielman said.
The bumper of the Honda was torn off as well, leaving the driver at a loss.
"Can I drive this home?" she asked the officers.
According to Fairfax County Police spokesperson Jody Donaldson, the driver was taken to Inova Healthplex in Springfield and sustained "minor injuries, non-life-threatening," he said.