Car Crashes Into CrossFit, Man Critically Injured

NASHVILLE, TN — A 78-year-old woman drove her car deep into a Charlotte Pike gym Friday afternoon, pinning a man against the wall, leaving him fighting for his life.

Metro Police say Ronda Taylor was parked in a handicap spot in front of CrossFit Barefoot and apparently thought she was in reverse when she hit the gas; instead she was in drive and accelerated toward the gym. Investigators believe she may have panicked once she realized her error and stamped down farther on the gas.

As she broke through the barrier and the front glass window, her Kia surged into the gym, where a small class was being held. Owen Canavan, 30, was pinned between the car and the wall.

“I turn around, and I see Owen get hit by the car, and I think, he’s gone," Nick Freije, who was leading the class, told NewsChannel5 "He gets hit, it’s against the wall, so he’s pinned."

Freije said the midday Friday class is one of the least attended sessions at the gym and had it been any other time things could have been worse.

“Almost for sure there would be six or seven people dead right now. No doubt. We’d be lined up, and they would have just been like bowling pins," Freije told the news station.

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