A driver suffered a medical emergency as he careened off a Philadelphia road and into a utility pole.
The elderly man was driving along the 1500 block of S Warfield Street, which runs along the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76), in the city’s Grays Ferry neighborhood around 4:45 a.m. Thursday when he suffered some sort of medical event that caused him to lose control of his sports utility vehicle, according to Philadelphia Police.
The SUV crashed into a utility pole on the right side of the road before coming to rest on the embankment next to the highway.
Investigators say the elderly man was hooked up to a breathing apparatus at the time of the wreck.
Emergency crews rescued the man from the crashed SUV and rushed him to the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania in stable condition.
The leaning utility pole knocked out power to about a handful of businesses in a nearby industrial park. PECO crews worked for hours trying to safely remove the utility pole, which leaned on power lines.
Police hoped to have the scene cleared before the morning commute but by daybreak the closure and outage remained.
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In the meantime, NBC10's Jillian Mele suggested using 32nd or 33rd Streets as alternates.
The driver wasn't identified.
