How This Happened: SUV Found Atop Smaller Car At Shell

TINLEY PARK, IL — Motorists along 159th Street just before the evening rush on Tuesday were a bit amazed to find a scene that unfolded in the parking lot of the Shell gas station at 159th and 84th Avenue in Tinley Park. Photos shared with Patch Tuesday evening show an SUV mounted atop a smaller car.

"I was at my desk working and heard a boom... then everyone went running," an employee at the Rizza Buick GMC Cadillac dealership next door told Patch on Wednesday. "We were all kinda mortified and didn't know what happened."

Tinley Park Police Chief Matthew Walsh said the accident report indicates the smaller car, a Volkswagen Passat, had an issue with its brakes and the driver could not stop until it rear-ended the larger car, a Chevy Equinox. The impact then forced the Equinox atop the Volkswagen, Walsh said.

It was the driver of the Equinox who suffered minor injuries, but it was not as a result of the crash.

"He (the driver) fell out of the car when getting out and had a bloody face," Walsh said, adding that he refused treatment.

A final report on the incident, which Walsh described as "a freak accident," was still in the works Wednesday afternoon.

Shenita D. Talton, who shared the photo of the crash with Patch, said it happened shortly before 5 p.m. She said a police car, ambulance and fire truck responded and an ambulance left the scene with its sirens on.

The car dealership employee said police responded "instantaneously."

An employee at Shell on Wednesday said she was not allowed to share information, directing Patch to the Circle K corporate office. A phone message left with the corporate office was not returned as of Wednesday afternoon.

"It was crazy," the dealership employee said. "I've lived around here my whole life and I've never seen anything like it."

Walsh also said he's never witnessed anything like this before.

"It's something new every day," he said.