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It could have been so much worse!

An elderly woman was hospitalized Sunday afternoon after her vehicle careened through a Eureka intersection, narrowly missing the Old Town Carriage Company horse before crashing into a tree by the gazebo.

Old Town resident Colton O’Neale said he witnessed the crash, which happened at approximately 3:39 p.m. The driver was placed on a gurney and loaded into an ambulance.

“We overheard a firemen tell someone that she mixed up her gas and her brake,” O’Neale told the Outpost this morning. 

Laura Montagna, public information officer with the Eureka Police Department, said the unidentified driver (born in 1949) was headed westbound on Second Street immediately before the accident.

Consulting the call logs, Montagna said the driver narrowly missed the horse and struck a light pole, so both PG&E and the Humboldt County Public Works Department were notified.

O’Neale, who lives in an upstairs apartment near the scene, said he heard “frantic shouting” right before the incident. 

“I looked [out a window] and saw several people running out of the way as she barreled through,” he reported. “[A] neighbor and I walked up for a closer look and I don’t think she hit anyone.”