Car loses control, crashes into Ferndale apartment building

FERNDALE — An apartment complex in Ferndale suffered major damage after a vehicle lost control and flipped over into the building.

The Ferndale Police Department responded to the crash at approximately 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 11, at 1400 W. Nine Mile Road. Police officers arrived at the scene to find a sedan turned over and inside the apartments.

Members of the Ferndale Fire Department were able to extract the driver, a 38-year-old Southfield man, and he was taken to a hospital. He was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation, but police stated in a news release that the driver was traveling east on Nine Mile Road when the sedan crossed into the westbound lane. It then left the roadway near the intersection of Nine Mile and Forest Street, traveled across the boulevard and then struck the apartment building.

Police confirmed no residents in the apartments were injured from the incident, as the vehicle crashed into a section of the building that did not have units, but a stairwell instead.

“It was a very, very severe accident,” said Evan Ahlin, communications liaison for the Ferndale Police Department. “Everybody is very fortunate that it did not turn out worse than what it was because of where the vehicle struck. It actually hit, it’s almost like a ladder well where stairs go up to the second floor. So it actually did not hit a residence or an apartment where residents were. If that did happen, things could have turned out a lot worse.”

“If the vehicle was probably a couple feet over, it would have missed that and ended up in someone’s front door,” he continued.

Ahlin said the building suffered significant damage, but he hasn’t been told that anyone was displaced because of the placement of the crash.

“I know the Fire Department was working to assess the structural situation of the building,” he said. “At the time, the residents did not have to be evacuated. When I went over there in the evening time frame to go do an interview, there were already crews there working to clean up and start the whole fixing process of it.”