The busy hum of a Saturday morning in Sag Harbor was disrupted by a violent car crash on Washington Street that ended with a black Jeep Rubicon pushing a smaller black sedan into, and through, a wrought-iron fence at the Watchcase Factory condominiums, at the corner of Church Street.
The driver of the sedan was taken away by a crew from the Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance in a neck brace and on a stretcher after sitting for some time on a nearby curb. The driver of the Rubicon was on scene and sobbing for many minutes after the collision.
Onlookers were left with many questions.
It wasn't immediately clear if it was a road rage incident or if the gas pedal somehow got stuck. The driver of the Rubicon, a middle-aged woman, was wearing flip-flops. An ambulance volunteer said she didn't appear to have had a medical incident.
"I don't understand what was going on," said one man among the bystanders. "The woman doesn't seem like she just had a road rage incident. If you did have road rage, you wouldn't be sobbing."
Just before 10 a.m., the driver of the sedan had made a right on Washington Street from Main Street and was closely followed by the Rubicon. The two vehicles made contact about 50 feet up Washington Street, where plastic pieces from taillights were strewn after the crash.
Once contact was made, the wheels on the Rubicon spun, the left side screeching, smoking, and leaving a long, black skid mark as it rammed the smaller car up the length of the street and into the fence; the right side of the Jeep was now up over the curb on the right side of the road.
"The trunk of the small car is under the Jeep," said one man.
It was crumpled like paper, and the back window of the car had shattered.
When Nicholas Samot, a Sag Harbor Village Police officer, attempted to reverse the Rubicon away from the sedan, he couldn't. The two vehicles were tightly stuck together. The hood of the Rubicon was as high as the roof of the sedan; it had completely dominated the smaller car.
A crowd of onlookers quickly coalesced at the scene as another man ran to the police station to use the emergency button at the window.
Some expressed surprise to find that the driver of the Rubicon was a woman. "I thought it would be a dude," said Jamey Ellis, who had witnessed the accident while sipping coffee in front of the Sag Harbor Cinema.
"It was like she became possessed by the spirit of the insane monster Jeep she was driving," he said, speculating. "It totally took her over and turned her into a testosterone-driven maniac bent on revenge."
"Everybody's driving too crazy," said one woman. "I don't think she did it on purpose. I think she meant to stop and instead put her foot on the accelerator."
"I'm surprised it wasn't a Range Rover," said another.
"You don't climb over the trunk of a car unless you're really putting the pedal to the metal," said a man who manages a nearby furniture store and witnessed the collision.
About 25 minutes after the accident occurred, an officer started taking the names of witnesses on a small pad. A younger woman had apparently seen the Rubicon tailgating the smaller car on Main Street, but she had disappeared. The cop assured onlookers that camera video would be reviewed.
"I wish I could understand what really happened," said a man, as the crowd began to disperse.
Another woman, who lives at the Harbor's Edge condominium complex, on the other side of the village, was drawn to the scene by her phone. "I got an alert on a citizen's app," she said. "Watchcase car crash. I don't miss anything."