Sinkhole in Tuscaloosa wrecks car

TUSCALOOSA, Ala, (WBRC) -Monday turned out to be a very bad day for a Tuscaloosa woman. All Patricia Campbell wanted to do was take her husband to the doctor’s office but instead, the two ended up in a sinkhole, a sinkhole you’ll probably going to be familiar with once you see this story.

Campbell recalls the very words she thought as her SUV was going down in the sinkhole.

“Oh hell,” she said.

From there it got worse. Tuscaloosa first responders pulled the couple out, extra careful with Patricia Campbell’s husband who suffered a stroke recently. Campbell says her husband had a doctor’s appointment, but had trouble locating the doctor’s office.

“301 Rice Mine Road. Well, they’re three addresses for that,” she said.

Campbell made her way through the parking lot adjacent to the sinkhole, took a right since there were no barricades and the next thing she knew...

“The road gave out from under me in the front,” she said.

The nose of the SUV is deep in the hole, enough of a pitch to lift the back tire off the ground.

“No, no neither one of us was hurt,” Campbell added.

The sinkhole didn’t just appear overnight. The culvert a few yards away remains filled with water after torrential rains several weeks ago. It has yet to be drained and this is the result of it. Tuscaloosa city leaders say while this is private property, they tell WBRC they’re working with the property owner to get it fixed.

A tow truck arrived on the scene but it was quickly discovered it will likely take two tow trucks to pull Patricia Campbell’s vehicle out, not something Patricia Campbell wanted to after all she’s gone through on this Monday.

“It’s too far in there,” the first tow truck told Campbell.

“They’ll have to pick the front up and drag it out..”

“It’s real frustrating,” she said.

Stuck no more! Around 3:30 Monday afternoon two wreckers showed up and it took the crew about 30 minutes to figure out how to get the SUV out. They did it but WBRC learned on the scene the plunge in the sinkhole caused major damage underneath. In fact, Patricia Campbell’s relatively new SUV may be totaled.

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