Car rams into adult day center in DC, woman trapped in fire: police

WASHINGTON, D.C. - One woman is injured after she drove it into a D.C. building, causing a fire and a partial building collapse.

According to D.C. fire officials, the woman was alone in the car when they responded to the scene on 2000 block of Bunker Hill Road NE around 7:45 a.m. Thursday. Roughly 100 personnel from 20 units responded to assist, D.C. fire officials said.

"The occupant in the car was screaming ‘help’ and she was putting her hand out the back window. So, we immediately got a hose line on the fire and sprayed water until we were able to get her out with Squad 2 and Truck 4," Lt. Jamie Heflin said.

The woman’s injuries were considered serious but not life-threatening.

"This is a once-in-a-career type of run. This is pretty high risk, being there are some structural issues with the building after a car crashes through it. Add on the fact that there’s fire and everything else. It gets pretty complex, pretty quick," Lt. James Hurley said.

The building houses an adult day center and is next to a child care center, according to building owner Nagender Madavaram. He’s owned the building for a year.

"Oh, horrible. I never imagined the building would like this after the fire, which was my first experience," Madavaram said. "It impacts the daycare. It impacts my building. I don’t know how many months it takes. It takes a lot of time, so we need to wait."

There are typically six or seven people in the building at a time, he said. Though it is open five days a week, Madavaram said no one was in the building when the crash happened.

Bennie Barnes-Williams lives across the street and was home with her son Thursday morning.

"We heard a boom but…not knowing what the boom was. I first thought, ‘is this a gas explosion?’ If so, we need to get up and tend to this for us, because we really didn’t know," Barnes-Williams said. "I’ve never seen this many fire engines in all my life, no matter where. Then I started thinking, there must be something more to this than the boom and the crash."

After hours of work, the car was towed around 1:30 p.m. Thursday. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.