An early morning fiery car crash sent this recycling dumpster over a fence and into a neighbor's backyard.
Early this morning a 23-year-old speeding through the alleys of the Central West End in his Mercedes-Benz struck a dumpster, causing it to go airborne and causing the car to catch fire.
The dumpster was struck with such force that it landed in a resident's backyard.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police say that a little before 2 a.m., an officer spotted the Mercedes "traveling at a high rate of speed" in an alley near the intersection of Lindell Boulevard and Sarah Street.
The vehicle sped across Sarah and into the alley just south of the 4100 block of Lindell.
According the the SLMPD, the vehicle, "went airborne due to the high rate of speed and a dip in the road."
The Mercedes landed on its front tires but lost control, striking the dumpsters in the alley. One of the dumpsters, specifically the one for recycling, went flying. It landed on the other side of a chainlink fence in a nearby resident's backyard.
Police say that after striking the dumpster, the Mercedes caught fire.
Fox 2 News reported that neighbors also heard gunfire in addition to the crash and that the gunfire came from the car itself.
SLMPD says that the police report from the incident is incomplete, but thus far there is no mention of a gun being recovered at the scene.
The driver told police he had no memory of crashing his Mercedes. He suffered a laceration to his forehead as well as an injury to his leg. First responders transported him to a nearby hospital.
The dumpster for green waste was also badly damaged in the crash. The brown "trash only" one survived relatively unscathed.
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