A pickup truck caught fire and crashed into the bushes outside a City Avenue apartment building this morning after the driver said the transmission began smoking.
The crash closed City Avenue at Bala Avenue in both directions for a little more than an hour.
A driver and his passenger got out of the pickup truck along the Philadelphia side of the road that divides the city from Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County around 9:15 a.m.
The passenger and a witness told NBC10's Na'eem Douglas that the pickup was experiencing transmission problems and began smoking so the driver pulled over.
As they got out of the truck it began to roll backwards.
Passenger Clyde Perkins said the driver tried to jump back into the truck to stop it from rolling.
"He jumped in to try and put it back in park but it wouldn't go back in so he turned the wheel to keep it from hitting the traffic behind us," said Perkins.
"As soon as he got away from it we heard the first pop."
It eventually rolled into the bushes outside the apartments. Thick black smoke and red flames then shot from the vehicle, according to Perkins.
The driver suffered an ankle injury while trying to get the truck in park and was treated at the scene. No one else was hurt, according to police.
As SkyForce10 hovered overhead a short time after the wreck, you could see the charred remains of the pickup wedged between bushes outside the building in a diagonal direction.
Police didn't officials give a cause for the crash.
The intensity of the fire left black soot on the side of the brick building.
Photo Credit: Fiona Kennedy