Woman, 53, practicing her driving at cemetery crashes into eight tombstones
A woman practicing to drive at a cemetery lost control of her vehicle and crashed into eight headstones.
Officers with the Melrose Police Department responded to the Wyoming Cemetery in Melrose, Massachusetts, on Saturday afternoon, said Police Chief Michael Lyle.
Around 2:30pm, the woman, 53, mistakenly stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brakes and went flying into a row of tombstones, Melrose police Lieutenant David Mackey said.
‘It was an older woman who just never learned to drive, apparently just recently got her permit, and probably shouldn’t have,’ Mackey told the Daily Mail. ‘What can you do? Accidents happen.’
Mackey added: ‘No crime involved, just an unfortunate accident with a considerable amount of damage.’
The unidentified driver had a relative who is a licensed operator riding with her, police said. Neither of them was injured.
Images from the accident showed an older model white Range Rover on top of a pile of tombstones, with debris and shredded earth around it. The front bumper was thrashed and the front left side of the SUV was bent it. The front left tire fell off and lay a distance to the left in the grass.
The vehicle was towed away from the scene, according to Mackey.
Numerous headstones were damage and placed back upright in their original positions by the Department of Public Works, Lyle told FOX 2.
It is believed that the woman lost control of the vehicle when she struck the headstones.
The police department is still investigating the incident.
It is not the first incident of a car accident at a cemetery in the US recently. On Memorial Day 2021, a woman suspected of drunk driving crashed into multiple headstones at a veterans cemetery. She was arrested after allegedly sideswiping two vehicles at Ford Cemetery in Denver and then ramming into the tombstones.
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