Imagine this: you’re sitting inside of your apartment in Seattle, Washington’s Queen Anne neighborhood, attached to a parking garage. You’re just about to sip your coffee a little before 9 a.m., when all of a sudden an old man in a Subaru falls roof-first onto the patio. It sounds like something you’d see in a movie.

However, it was very real. A 77-year-old man was trying to park and drove over a cement parking bumper, through a metal railing, and dropped 12 feet onto the apartment patio. He survived the fall, and medical personnel were able to help him out of the Subaru and transport him to the hospital.

Police are investigating the cause of the accident, but suspect speed played a role, since the driver lived in the complex.

“There was probably a significant amount of speed because he went over a barrier and then a railing before he flipped his vehicle onto the patio,” Brian Pritchard, a detective, told KOMO.

The old Subaru held up pretty well

Pictures of the crash on the Seattle Police Department’s website show the Subaru’s roof remaining strong despite the vehicle’s full weight on the A-pillars. It speaks to the structural integrity of the Japanese brand and is the reason emergency personnel were able to extract him.

Unfortunately, the fall proved to be too much for the Subaru driver. Police say the hospital tried valiantly to save him, but he succumbed to his injuries several hours later.

Several residents of the complex expressed sadness and shock that the accident happened at all.

Viewers think the accident was preventable

KOMO’s readers have had similar experiences with their parents as they became elderly, and felt the man’s family should have stepped in.

“One of the most difficult things I had to do was to tell my father and eventually my mother that they shouldn’t be driving anymore. I understood they felt a loss of their freedom to come and go as they wished,” wrote a reader. “But it was to protect them and the others on the road. Cognitive decline happens. Hopefully, there are family members or friends who will step forward. My time is coming, I’m sure.”

A reader responded, saying they were relieved when their parents decided to stop driving.

“I felt blessed, when my mother announced she wouldn’t be driving any more, and was selling her car,” they wrote. “She had recently bumped into 4 different cars, leaving minor dents on both vehicles.”

Another called on the building’s engineers, as they think the Subaru shouldn’t have been able to blow past the barriers.

“One would think a college-educated engineer could design a barrier that couldn’t be driven through,” they wrote.