Car crashes through parking garage wall, falls 5 floors

Bizarre news from downtown: A man driving through the parking garage at the high-rise Houston House apartments somehow ended up crashing through a wall of the garage yesterday evening, sending his car plummeting about five floors onto the roof of an adjacent building. The man — who was driving a Mustang convertible — died.

The crash was reported around 6:30 p.m., and it's not clear yet exactly how it happened, though KTRK reports that the car was going backward when it went through the wall. Houston House resident Meredith Morin, who was standing on the sidewalk talking to her mother when the crash occurred, said she heard an explosion, then looked up and saw the Mustang crashing through the wall. Bricks and debris then fell to the sidewalk around her. "I've been here eight years and, wow, this is freaky," Morin told the Chronicle. " I could have been killed — those were big chunks. Bricks rained around me." According to KTRK's early report, three people were taken to local hospitals for treatment, but it wasn't clear who they were or how they were injured.

We've been in the Houston House garage before and remember it as a series of tight spaces and sharp turns, but even so, we'd assume that anyone who's used to the garage would be able to navigate it without any problems. Should be interesting to see how this story develops.