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Fourteen people were injured, four of them critically, Friday evening when a vehicle crashed into a building in the Court House area of Arlington, police said.
The crash happened with a loud boom about 6:45 p.m. in the 2000 block of busy Wilson Boulevard as the vehicle drove past the front of a tavern, authorities and witnesses said.
In addition to those critically injured at the Four Courts pub in Ireland, four others were taken to hospitals in non-life-threatening conditions, police said. Six other people were treated at the scene, according to police.
The crash ignited a fire, which was extinguished. Video circulating on social media showed people rushing away as flames shot from the front of the pub, Ireland’s Four Courts.
About 30 people were in the red-fronted pub, both customers and staff, when server Mary Reilly heard what she described as a loud boom.
“We just heard this massive explosion,” he said. He was in a part of the tavern away from the accident and did not see it. But she saw the immediate consequences.
It included “dust and just debris that was pointed at,” he said.
When “pure panic broke out,” he said, people ran out the back.
Everyone was shouting: ‘Get out, get out, get in the back, get in the back'”.
Another witness to the immediate aftermath looked shaken.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the person said. “It was like a carnage.”
Witnesses reported that a group of people at a table were among the most seriously injured. According to the accounts of people at the scene, bystanders helped pull the injured from the rubble.
The cause of the accident could not be immediately determined. Police spokeswoman Ashley Savage did not provide further details. However, he said the driver was one of those taken to a hospital. The type of vehicle was not disclosed. He appeared to remain inside the building Friday night.
Nancy Donnella, who said she co-owns the building where the crash occurred, said she was told by police and others at the scene that the crash happened head-on.
The building is located at the intersection of Wilson Boulevard and Courthouse Road; The courthouse cuts Wilson at right angles. Donnella said he was told the vehicle had apparently been northbound on the courthouse and “I just ran into it.”
That account could not be independently confirmed by police.
Savage said the building remains structurally sound. However, it was unclear when it would reopen.
Wilson Boulevard is a major east-west thoroughfare in Arlington and is lined with high-rise office buildings and is also a major hub for nightlife, with many restaurants and taverns.
In a similar incident earlier this year in the District, two women were killed and at least nine others were injured when the driver of a small SUV plowed into customers outside a restaurant along Connecticut Avenue NW during lunchtime, according to D.C. police and fire officials.
This developing story has been updated.