Officials: Flying object smashes car windshield, peels off roof on I-95

WESTPORT — A New York driver was pulled from the wreckage of a car after an object, possibly a flying tire, struck the vehicle and took off most of the roof on Interstate 95 early Wednesday, officials said.

Westport medics transported the car’s occupant to the hospital “with unknown injuries,” Assistant Fire Chief Jeffrey Gootman said in a statement.

Photos of the car, a red Toyota sedan, showed the collision completely smashed in the vehicle’s front windshield and peeled back the roof, though it was unclear how much of the bodywork had been removed to extricate the car’s occupant.

“State Police determined that an errant tire from an unknown vehicle had struck the moving car, shearing off most of the car’s roof,” Gootman said.

The crash occurred in the early hours in the southbound lanes of the highway between exits 16 and 17.

State police said around 3:10 a.m. troopers were called to the scene of the crash along with firefighters and medics.

The car was heading south on the highway in the left lane near Exit 16 “when all of a sudden an unknown object struck the windshield, dismantling the roof,” state police said.

The statement did not provide any further information about what the object was that hit the car, a 2019 Toyota Camry, or how it came to be loose on the highway.

The collision caused the 52-year-old driver, of Bronx, N.Y., to lose control of his car and hit the metal guardrail in the right shoulder, damaging about 15 feet of the metal barrier.

State police said the driver was extricated from the wreckage and taken to Norwalk Hospital by ambulance. The Toyota was later towed away from the scene.

State police said no enforcement action was taken as a result of the crash.

The crash remains under investigation.