X17's Eyewitness Account Of The Crash!
Posted on Fri Oct 12th, 2007 10:18am PDT By X17 Staff
We've talked to one of our photographers who was present at Orlando Bloom's crash last night, and he's provided us with the following details about just how the crash went down:
And here's what the police say (per Officer Ana Aguirre of the LAPD):
- After climbing into the passenger seat of the Matrix, Orlando and his companions headed west on Sunset toward Fairfax. The Matrix quickly pulled over and Orlando switched seats with the driver. Orlando then made a sudden U-turn on Fountain, almost hitting another car.
- Following that near-miss, Orlando turned left onto Vista, where he crashed into a parked silver Porsche Cayenne, at which point he parked the Matrix and started walking away. “I jumped out of my car after everyone suddenly stopped," our photog reports. "As I was the fourth car behind him, I didn’t know a crash occurred. As I got out of the car, I saw Orlando get out of his. He got out of the driver’s side door. He was clearly driving. Right away he cut over to the sidewalk and started walking away from the car. He was walking west."
- At this point, the paparazzi start pointing out that he shouldn't leave the scene and that he needed to take care of the situation; Orlando paused for a moment - in our photog's words, the actor "sort of gave a shrug of acknowledgement" - and headed back to the scene of the accident. Once there, he started attending to the woman in the back seat; our photog reports that she "was bleeding bad. Orlando helped her out of the back seat with the other woman. But she couldn’t walk. She was staggering so they put her down on the street."
- Finally, about five minutes after the crash (and about 30 seconds after our photog "heard a bystander say, ‘Someone call 911!’", the ambulance arrived to pick up the woman who'd been injured. Orlando and the other woman got into the ambulance along with her - the brunette was cradling the other woman's neck. Our photog thought Orlando appeared to be fine, but he was stricken by his change in conduct - “Now he started acting like he cared. Before he didn’t. Initially he didn’t even think of them and started walking away," he reports.
- 2 sheriff's cars arrived, 1 fire truck, 1 EMT vehicle, and 1 ambulance. And finally, everyone went off to the hospital for treatment. Our photographer never saw any tests administered on the scene.
And here's what the police say (per Officer Ana Aguirre of the LAPD):
- There was no alcohol or drug use suspected. It's also possible that they might have administered a blood-alcohol test to Orlando at the local LA-area hospital where he was taken, but the LAPD have not been provided with any test results blood test results.
- There were two female passengers in the vehicle, the 30 year-old brunette in the front seat, who suffered lacerations and a blonde, 35 years-old, who was in the back, who LAPD believe suffered a neck fracture.
- The investigation is on-going and if the LAPD were to receive blood test results from the hospital that showed an illegal alcohol level, that would certainly factor into their investigation.
- Officer Aguirre says there will be no criminal charges and Orlando "appears to be an innocent victim."
What a sad story - hopefully the woman in the back wasn't too badly hurt!