Car slams into west Sioux Falls apartment at high rate of speed: Witnesses

Authorities are working to figure out what caused a driver to hit an apartment building at an estimated 100 mph on Thursday morning.

Sioux Falls Police, South Dakota Highway Patrol and fire rescue crews responded at about 10:30 a.m. Thursday to a crash near the intersection of West 41st Street and South Kuehn Park Avenue.

First responders arrived to find a white Ford car that had traveled backward into a Country Meadows apartment in western Sioux Falls.

An Argus Leader reporter observed damage to both the rear of the vehicle and the balcony entrance of the residence.

A South Dakota Highway Patrol officer told the Argus Leader the vehicle had been traveling "100 mph" when the driver lost control and crashed into the apartment, which was occupied by a tenant at the time. They were not able to say what led up to the crash.

Travis Mans, who lives two stories immediately above the apartment that was damaged, said the second the car struck, the "entire building shook."

"It sounded like an explosion," Mans said.

He said he looked out his window above the downstairs apartment to see the vehicle partially sticking out of his neighbor's home.

Benjamin Kenner, who lives in the same building as the apartment that was struck by the driver, said he could see the white car traveling east on West 41st Street at a high rate of speed. He witnessed the vehicle hit a curb at the nearby intersection, spin and travel backward into his neighbor's place.

Kenner, Mans and a Highway Patrol officer went inside the glass-strewn abode. Kenner said the person whose apartment was hit crawled out from under the wreckage.

Kenner said his neighbor told him he was in bed when the crash happened. His neighbor, Kenner said, told him the vehicle ended up "on top of him."

"He was in shock. Completely in shock," Kenner said. "[He was] not coherent … He was so scared, he left his wheelchair because he couldn't get it out anyways. It was pinned in there. He crawled out himself by his hands because he's paralyzed from the waist-down."

Kenner said he, Mans and the Highway Patrol officer helped remove the neighbor from the building. Kenner said he then retrieved the wheelchair and helped their neighbor back into it.

The extent of the unnamed neighbor's injuries are unknown. Kenner said he witnessed paramedics place their neighbor into an ambulance and leave the scene.

The driver's identity is currently unknown at this time. Kenner and Mans said they witnessed Highway Patrol arrest a man and place him in a patrol car.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Car slams into west Sioux Falls apartment at high rate of speed: Witnesses