Sightseer Dragged By Own Car Badly Injured Montanan Carried 115 Feet On Main Avenue As Wife Watches

What was supposed to be a romantic view of Spokane Falls turned into a horror show for an elderly Montana couple Tuesday when one of them was badly hurt in a freak car accident.

Harold and Vera Wittenberg were in Spokane to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, police said.

About 3 p.m., the Missoula couple pulled into a gravel parking lot on the north side of Main Avenue, just west of the Spokane Club.

They decided to stop for a minute to look at the Spokane River as it rushed over the Post Street dam, police officer Rich Jennings said.

The two got out of their mustard-colored 1973 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, which was parked with its rear facing downhill.

At one point, Harold Wittenberg, who had been having trouble getting the car’s emergency brake to disengage, kneeled beside the open driver’s door to work on the problem, Jennings said.

Suddenly, the brake popped loose and the still-running Continental began rolling backward, witnesses said.

The big two-door careened through the parking lot with 77-year-old Harold Wittenberg trapped underneath it, police said.

It hit one parked car in the lot, then rolled onto Main Avenue as Vera Wittenberg watched.

Her husband, caught on the open door, was dragged nearly 115 feet then run over by one of the Lincoln’s front wheels. Seconds later, the car rammed a green minivan parked on the south side of Main and stopped.

“It was terrible, just terrible,” said a Spokane Club employee who witnessed the accident.

Harold Wittenberg was taken to Deaconess Medical Center, where he was diagnosed with multiple rib fractures and other internal injuries.

He was listed in critical condition late Tuesday.

, DataTimes