Mount Prospect woman reverses into windows of apartment complex

A Mount Prospect woman was slightly injured early Monday after accidentally driving her car into an apartment complex, authorities said.

Mount Prospect Police Cmdr. John Wagner said the woman was getting into her car at 7:35 a.m. to go to work, when she started to feel dizzy.

She put the car in reverse, Wagner said, then mistakenly stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake. The car hit a truck, a minivan and a bush before hitting a row of windows in a first floor apartment on the 1400 block of Cottonwood Lane.

The back end of the car hit the windows, Wagner said, but the tires of the vehicle never made it inside the structure.

“It’s unclear if she lost consciousness or not,” he said. “It happened so fast that she probably panicked and didn’t realize what was going on.”

The apartment was empty, Wagner said, and no other injuries were reported. The driver was taken to an area hospital for the dizzy spell.

The apartment’s resident, Henry Obashan, was at work when the crash occurred. When friends called to tell him, he thought they were joking.

Obashan said he knows the woman involved and that she is a good person. He said it didn’t look like any of his property was damaged other than the window and air conditioning unit.

“It’s just lucky no one was in there,” he said.

The apartment building was checked following the crash and deemed safe by the Mount Prospect building department. The windows are being boarded up, Wagner said.

“My whole side of the building shook,” said neighbor Roberta Smith. “I thought it was a snowplow.”

When she realized it hadn’t snowed, she went to look out her window and saw her neighbor’s car sticking out of the building.

Smith was one of the first people outside to help her neighbor and said she was very disoriented and in shock.

“She wasn’t even sure what happened,” Smith said.

Smith added that she was glad no one else was hurt because at that time of day students could have been walking to the school bus stop nearby.

Neighbor Steve Brown wasn’t home when the accident happened, but said he was concerned for the driver, a neighbor he described as quiet and nice.

“Anybody can get in a wreck,” he said. “You can replace a car, but you can’t replace a person.”