The black Ford Focus ploughed into the Co-op in Deptford pic: @greenwichwolfie
A man died and a pedestrian was injured yesterday after his car ploughed into the front of a food store in Deptford.
Deptford Bridge road was closed yesterday after the crash. Police believe the driver was in his 20s. He was driven to a South London hospital by ambulance where he was pronounced dead.
Twitter user @greenwichwolfie told ELL that the car had mounted the “pavement against one side of the entrance to the store, with bags of shopping on the ground around it”.
Grace Carter ,who works on Deptford High street, she became aware of the crash after traffic backed up the high street in front of her business.
She said she saw “a black car had gone into the side of the Co-op. We ended up making a loop as we weren’t allowed to go any further on our bikes. There we overheard a policeman saying to a pedestrian that life altering injuries had occurred, and that they were waiting for news from the hospital before they could allow traffic again. Judging from how the front of the car was smashed in it wasn’t hard to imagine that injuries were severe.”
Police are still unsure of the identity of the driver of the black Ford Focus and are currently trying to trace next of kin. The female pedestrian who the car collided with was taken to hospital but the police described her condition as stable and not life threatening.
Local residents were left concerned after the road was closed for around four hours. TFL traffic maintained updates of the crash and its clearing but warned of residual delays.
A2 Deptford Bridge at Greenwich High Rd – Road fully closed due to a collision. E/B delays to Amersham Rd. W/B is slow from Shooters Hill Rd pic.twitter.com/jNZiE0cebK
— TfL Traffic News (@TfLTrafficNews) October 31, 2017
The road closure caused a huge backlog of traffic captured by below in a video by twitter user Alastair Clark.
A car has gone into the wall at the co-op, if you can, avoid Deptford Bridge pic.twitter.com/wr4ZuhQ6ju
— Alastair Clark (@AliClark84) October 31, 2017
There was also added confusion in the area as a number of police cars and armoured vans were using the same road to travel on and were waved through the road closure.
Many on Twitter speculated a larger problem with user @hannahforest saying “So in Deptford, a car has gone into a building, which has required a massive police response…terror attack suspected?”
The Metropolitan Police denied that the large number of vehicles was due to a “major incident” but simply routine Halloween night police numbers.
Some of the police travelling through the closed road were travelling to Plumstead High Street where a fight had broken out between three men.
Anyone who witnessed this incident should call the Serious Collision Investigation unit on 101.
