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Queens Residents Unnerved By Sunday Morning 1-Man Wrecking Crew

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- It was a wild scene in Queens.

Police said a man trying to leave the scene of an accident ended up driving onto the sidewalk and leaving a trail of wreckage, CBS2's Erin Logan reported Sunday night.

Multiple cars were damaged, pieces of a fence piled up, and three people taken to the hospital.

"He just turned this block upside down. All of these people he disturbed," Woodhaven resident Lionel Harrison said.

Woodhaven hit and run
A driver made a mess of a Queens neighborhood in the early morning hours of March 25, 2018. (Photo: CBS2)

Harrison is one of several people whose property was damaged at around 1:30 a.m. Sunday. Surveillance video shows the driver of a destroyed silver car going down the sidewalk on 89th Street.

Police said he rear-ended a mini-van that was stopped at a light on Jamaica Avenue. That's when he did a U-turn onto the sidewalk to try to get away.

Witnesses said the people in the mini-van tried to follow him. Some of the victims were seen getting into an ambulance. Police said no one was seriously hurt.

Dorothy Himes said she woke up to all of the commotion and to her fence in pieces.

"The fire hydrant was another victim, too," she said.

Harrison's car eventually stopped the driver in his tracks. Police said the suspect crashed into it and then jumped out and took off running.

"He just ran and I found his cellphone and I said it must be his so I gave it to the cop," Harrison said.

Harrison said he happy to hear the man didn't get very far.

"Now that you gave me the good news that he turned himself in, I was depressed about it like, damn, I can't believe it," Harrison said.

"Thank God nobody got killed. He didn't hit anybody. Nobody was on the sidewalk," Himes said.

They said all of the damage can be fixed in no time.

Police said the 25-year-old driver faces six counts of leaving the scene of an accident and one count of reckless endangerment.

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