It was the kind of scene that stops neighbors mid-step. On Saturday, just before noon along Southwest 32nd Avenue near Hollandale Beach Boulevard in Pembroke Park, Florida, a Tesla left the roadway in dramatic fashion, taking out a mailbox and a stretch of fencing before wrapping itself around a tree. Then it caught fire. What investigators and bystanders were left with afterward was a heap of crumpled, scorched metal that bore little resemblance to any production vehicle, electric or otherwise.
The driver, whose identity had not been released as of the initial report, was transported to a nearby hospital as a trauma alert, meaning first responders on scene assessed his injuries as potentially life-threatening. Local 10 News was still working to confirm his condition. Neighbors watching from the edge of the scene noted that the home sitting just feet from the point of impact could easily have been involved. It wasn’t, and that proximity to disaster is the kind of detail that tends to linger with a community long after the debris gets swept up.
Police were on scene and working to piece together the sequence of events, specifically how fast the car was traveling and what caused the driver to lose control before the impact. Neither had been confirmed at the time of the report. Shattered glass and scattered car parts were visible across the area, with road debris pushed beyond the base of the tree that finally stopped the Tesla’s path…