By Mark Wineka
mwineka@ salisburypost.com
The front chain-link fence at American Century Home Fabrics caught a car that spun out of control and overturned several times as it came off South Main Street Monday afternoon.
A man and woman, both in their early 20s, were injured.
Witnesses said the 1999 Ford Escort landed near the top of the fence and slid down, coming to rest on its left side against the fence.
The car’s driver, Hector Salazar, 21, of 585 Oak Mountain Road, Salisbury, freed himself from the vehicle and was trying to help his woman passenger, who was thrown from the front passenger seat into the rear of the car.
Assisting him was Regina Perry, who saw the wreck unfold in front of her as traffic moved south on South Main Street in front of the old Swink textile plant, now American Century.
“She’s pretty bad, cut and bruised,” Perry said of the woman’s injuries.
Trooper Chris Rogers said the woman, whose identity was difficult to obtain because of a language barrier, may have suffered a broken pelvis in addition to her cuts. She was a co-worker of Salazar’s.
Locke Fire Department and Salisbury Fire Department units responded and were able to extricate her from the car. Rowan EMS transported both people.
Rogers said a silver passenger car that didn’t stop at the scene probably caused the accident.
His report said the silver car tried to merge from the left lane of southbound travel into the right and clipped the back quarter panel of Salazar’s Escort, which was in the right lane.Salazar’s vehicle spun out and left the road, hitting a roadside ditch that caused it to go airborne and roll over several times.
Perry gave the same account of a silver car’s hitting the Escort, forcing it to lose control.
“That’s when he rolled five times,” she said.
Perry, whose mother is a nurse and father is an emergency medical technician, stopped to help Salazar as he tried to assist the woman.
“I kept telling him, ‘Don’t move her,’ ” Perry said.
The woman was conscious, though she blacked out for about 45 seconds, Perry said.
Both Perry and Salazar were concerned about gas leaking from the vehicle.
Mitchell High, driving a pickup that was ahead of the accident, saw it all happen as he checked his rearview mirror.
“It landed on top of the fence and came down,” he said of the Escort.
Knowing he was close to the highway patrol station at Webb Road, High kept on driving, ran into the Division of Motor Vehicles licensing station and was told to go upstairs to see the troopers, whom he told about the wreck.High said the silver car seemed to be barreling down South Main Street at about 80 mph and was impatient in trying to pass a truck that was holding it up in the left lane.
A commercial truck driver himself, High said he sees a lot of accidents occur from “people getting in a hurry.”
“I hate that it happened,” he said.
Rogers said he had nothing to go on with the hit-and-run vehicle beyond the witnesses saying it was a gray or silver car.
The accident occurred about 3 p.m.