A college student was nearly impaled when she crashed her car through a fence and tree last month
WEST WINDSOR - A teenage driver spooked by an oncoming car veered off the road last month and crashed through a fence and then careened across an open field where children were playing, West Windsor police said.
By the time her car finally bounced off a tree and came to stop in the roadway, everyone, including the 18-year-old driver, remained relatively unscathed, police said.
A beam that pierced the windshield of a driver's car after she crashed into a fence in Oct. 2015. (West Windsor Police) Officers arrived at the scene near Mercer County Community College around 1:45 p.m. on Oct. 20 to find the teenager - a student at the college - scratched and cut from her windshield glass but not seriously injured, according to police.
Children who had been playing in the area were also unharmed.
The state of the teenager's car was in bad shape. One fence post was lodged through the windshield into the back of the car, narrowly missing the driver's seat, according to a photo provided by police.
"She's as lucky as you can get," traffic Officer Francesco LaTorre said, adding that police do not suspect drugs or alcohol were a factor in the crash.
The crash started earlier that afternoon when the teenager was driving in the college parking lot. She pulled out of a space and saw another driver - a professor at the college - coming toward her, LaTorre said.
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The student veered out of the way, hit a curb and accelerated - straight into a lawn where children were playing. Parents and guardians in the lawn saw the driver coming and began frantically grabbing the children out of the way, LaTorre said.
After plowing through the lawn, the driver hit a picket fence and one of the posts pierced the driver's side of her windshield.
"She almost got impaled," LaTorre said.
A photo of a teenage driver's car after crashing through a fence, across a field and into a tree in Oct. 2015. (West Windsor Police) The car finally came to a stop when the driver hit a tree, bounced off and rolled back into the road, according to police.
First responders sent the teen to the hospital for evaluation, though she only had a few scratches and cuts at the scene, according to LaTorre. She was released the same day.
The girl was issued a summons for careless driving for the incident. Police declined to identify her.
Anna Merriman may be reached at amerriman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @anna_merriman Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.