Rainbow City, AL : One person was injured after he crashed his car into at Rainbow Plazaole at On Monday, July 25th, 2016

A man was airlifted from the scene Monday morning after he crashed his car into a pole in the parking lot at Rainbow Plaza.

Rainbow City Police Capt. Scott Holderfield said it was a single-vehicle crash, with only one occupant in the car.

However, witnesses at the scene said it appeared the man intentionally crashed his car into the light pole.

Before the crash, he went into a nearby convenience store and gave the employees there a phone number.

“He said, ‘Call my wife; tell her I love her and the baby, and I’m sorry,” a store clerk recounted.

Aaron Young was working construction at Center Stage. He said he and Fred Swain noticed the car around the back of corner of the building when they got to work about 8 a.m.

He pointed out tire tracks on the parking lot pavement. They were from the man’s car, speeding toward the pole, then missing it three or four times.

“We tried to talk to him,” Young said. “But he’d drive the car away from us.”

About 10:43 a.m., they heard the car motor even before seeing the car come speeding from the entrance of the parking lot.

“I heard it kick into another gear,” Young said, “and he stomped it.”

When the car struck, its front end folded in around the pole, they raced over to try to help.

“Me and Fred were the first over there. Fred opened the door and the first thing he said was ‘kill me,’” Young said.

He said the man was able to talk to them and to police. He said he told Swain he’d been married 16 years and his wife had left him.

The clerk at the convenience store said the man was a regular customer there, one who usually was in good spirits when he came in.

But Sunday he came in and he seemed upset, she said. “When he left he said, ‘It’s been nice knowing you.’” It was odd enough that she mentioned it to the manager when she came in Monday morning.

The manager told her the man had been in that morning and seemed all right.

“Then he came back in,” she said. That was when he gave them the phone number and asked them to make the call.

When they became aware of the crash across the street, both were concerned that it was their customer.

The manager went over to check and determined it was him.

When she got back to the store, they made the call he’d requested of them.

When the manager learned he would be flown from the scene, she called his wife again to tell her.

“I don’t know if she came up there or not,” the clerk said.

Source :
Man air-lifted after wreck; witnesses say he intentionally struck pole