Paul Bass Photo
Jordan Petrona said he was on his way to buy smoke detectors at Lowe’s when he suddenly found himself on the pavement side of an overturned Hyundai Santa Fe.
Miraculously, he emerged unscathed.
An apparent red light-runner had smashed into Petrona’s sports utility vehicle around 4:50 p.m., then fled the scene.
The red-light runner was on Orange Street approaching the intersection of Elm, according to eyewitness Marcus Medero (pictured).
“He fucking saw the light was turning red. He fucking tried to beat it,” Madero said at the scene.
The driver — of either a silver or white car, according to two different accounts — toppled Petrona’s Sante Fe with his car, then “kept going,” Madero said. (He didn’t catch a license-plate number.)
Petrona’s vehicle landed on the driver side in the middle of Elm Street. The air bags deployed.
“I didn’t lose consciousness. I couldn’t believe I had flipped over. I had to get out out of the car,” he said as cops and firefighters arrived. Cops closed off surrounding intersections; rush-hour traffic backed up for blocks.
The Sante Fe was still running. Firefighters propped open the back to cut the power.
Petrona was asked if he wanted to go to the hospital. “I feel fine,” he said, but would be open to having medics check him out after he reached his girlfriend on the phone.
Petrona, who’s 30, lives in Ansonia. He claimed he was working at home and decided to drive to Lowe’s in New Haven. “I was picking up smoke detectors,” he said. Until an unnamed driver had other plans.
Why would you drive from Ansonia, bro?