Overbrook woman narrowly survives after steel beam pierces through car: "I would have been decapitated"
It was a split-second mistake that could have turned tragic: an Overbrook woman thought she hit the brake but instead slammed the gas, sending her crashing into her garage. What happened next nearly cost her her life, and she says she knows she's lucky to be alive.
"If it would have been 2 inches closer, I wouldn't have had a head. I really think I would have been decapitated," Rosemary Price said.
Price is still shaken, but alive, after what could have been a fatal mistake.
"I hit the gas. I hit it hard because I thought it was the brake. I didn't want to hit the garage, but it just kept going and going and going," Price said.
The force of the impact sent a steel support beam from the detached garage straight through her car, smashing through the front windshield, stopping midway through the car, missing her by mere inches.
Price sat frozen with her cat next to her, trapped between twisted metal and shattered glass.
"I didn't even see the beam come into the car windshield until I finally stopped and then I looked over and there was this beam," she said.
Price was able to free herself and her cat from the car, but says she knew it was just a matter of time before the garage roof collapsed. Firefighters arrived within minutes and were able to pull Price to safety from one of the garage windows.
Her son, Bill Price, who rushed to her side, says this was nothing short of a miracle.
"Very lucky. Another inch and we wouldn't have this conversation. She wouldn't have been here today," Bill Price said.
City inspectors were on the scene shortly after and condemned the garage, saying the impact bent the steel supports and left the structure unsafe to enter.
"I can't believe I'm alive. I'm blessed. God has a purpose for me on earth. I don't know what it is, but thank God He was with me," she said.
Rosemary Price says she's blessed to be alive and more than anything, she's grateful her cat walked away without a scratch.
