Man critically hurt as car plows into storefront in London Jewish area

Two people were injured Wednesday, one of them critically, when a car driving through a prominent Jewish neighborhood in London mounted the sidewalk and crashed into a storefront.

Police said the crash on Golders Green Road appeared to be an accident, and did not make any arrests.

The incident occurred shortly before midday local time, in the heart of Golders Green, home to one of the capital’s main Jewish communities. Eyewitnesses said the streets were busy with shoppers preparing for the Passover festival, which begins on Friday night.

Security camera footage of the crash showed a silver Jaguar mount the sidewalk with a man clinging to the hood. The vehicle then careened along the sidewalk, plowed into an elderly male pedestrian and then continued on to crash through the front of a pharmacy.

People in the vicinity immediately ran to help with rescue efforts. According to eyewitnesses, one person was trapped under the vehicle until emergency services were able to extricate him.

“I think the car belonged to an older lady who couldn’t park her car. Another elderly man tried to park it for her and lost control,” a bus driver who witnessed the accident told the Jewish Chronicle on the condition of anonymity. “Her daughter was very worried it was her mum in the car. I was trying to reassure her.”

The London Air Ambulance landed nearby and then flew one of the injured to a hospital, the Daily Mail reported.

“A man has been taken to a central London hospital with possible life-threatening

injuries,” Metropolitan police said. “We await an update on the other injured person’s condition.”

The driver of the car was also taken away in an ambulance.

The Community Security Trust, a charity organization dealing security for the British Jews, confirmed in a tweet that the crash appeared to be an accident.

The crash caused the usually busy road to be closed as emergency services dealt with the incident.

The Jewish community watch group Shomrim North West London said in a statement that police had asked that it reassure the community that “this has not been classed as a deliberate attack or incident.

“Police ask that space be given to the emergency services to enable them to deal with this incident,” Shomrim said. “Therefore we kindly for pedestrians and traffic to avoid this section of road for the time being.”