Three people escape burning car out of control in City Heights, police say

A bizarre fiery car crash injured a woman and destroyed a parked car and SUV in City Heights on Tuesday morning.

Police say three people jumped out of a flaming Jeep that was rolling backward. The car ran over the driver as she tried to escape it.

Startled tenants of Trojan Avenue near 52d Street raced out their doors to find an SUV engulfed in flames.

“I just heard this big crash,” witness Natalia Montejano said.

The Jeep renegade was southbound up a Trojan Avenue hill when witnesses saw fire coming from the SUV.  

“Everybody was yelling at the person to stop,” witness Shauna Watson said.

Instead, the Jeep began to roll backwards down the hill. It crashed backwards into a black Lexus parked on the east side of the street. Nearby tenant Gary Martin owns it.

His daughter Gnyja Martin says the whole street is cursed and that this is not their first parked car crash. They owned a Tahoe that was hit when it was parked on the west side of the street. In fact, Gnyja says more than two-dozen cars in the neighborhood have been hit since they lived here.

San Diego traffic investigators say it was reported that the brakes failed, which is why the Jeep rolled backward down the hill. A closer look at video from a witness shows the two passengers and driver that bailed out.

The driver was the woman laying on the sidewalk in the video. The car rolled over her when she tried to escape.

“She seemed out of it. There were two guys actually trying to get her out of the car,” Montejano said.

Investigators say despite the way it looked to witnesses, her injuries were not considered serious.

Trojan Avenue and the 52nd Street intersection was closed for several hours while the vehicle was extinguished and traffic investigators completed their inspection.