3 injured after taxi jumps SF sidewalk, hits shoeshine stand

The aftermath of an accident involving a taxi cab on Market Street in San Francisco that sent three people to the hospital on Tuesday, August 23, 2016. The aftermath of an accident involving a taxi cab on Market Street in San Francisco that sent three people to the hospital on Tuesday, August 23, 2016. Photo: Peter Thoshinsky/SFPD Photo: Peter Thoshinsky/SFPD Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close 3 injured after taxi jumps SF sidewalk, hits shoeshine stand 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

A taxi jumped a curb in San Francisco’s bustling Financial District Tuesday and plowed into two workers at a shoeshine stand on the sidewalk, causing serious and, in one case, life-threatening injuries, officials and witnesses said.

The driver for Yellow Cab Cooperative was traveling westbound on Market Street at 3:17 p.m. when the crash occurred, said Lt. Jonathan Baxter, a spokesman for the San Francisco Fire Department.

It was not immediately clear how or why the driver, who was alone in the car, lost control, but the taxi smashed into the shoeshine stand at Sutter and Sansome streets, sending the two workers flying, knocked down a large newsstand kiosk and came to rest against a light pole, according to witnesses.

“The cab came barreling down Market Street, hit the newspaper stand, and then the next thing I saw was the old man flying over the shoeshine stand,” said Susan Giammona, who sells shawls and scarves at a stand only feet from the wreck, referring to one of the shoeshine workers. “The whole newspaper stand went over on its side. The cab kind of flew up. I was so shaken I couldn't even walk.”

The cab driver walked out of the car and lay on the street after the crash, Giammona said. The longtime proprietor of the shoeshine business mumbled something about getting the driver's license plate number when witnesses rushed to help him as he lay on the sidewalk.

The other shoeshine worker was unconscious and regained consciousness when paramedics arrived, she said.

“The whole community — any goodness that was in anybody here on this street, anybody that had any good in them at all — they all came to the rescue,” Giammona said

The shoeshine workers and taxi driver were taken to San Francisco General Hospital. Hospital spokesman Brent Andrews declined to release the victims’ names, but he said a 40- year-old man was in critical condition. The other two victims — ages 59 and 66 — were listed in fair condition, he said.

A supervisor at Yellow Cab Cooperative said the company would not comment.

Sidewalks in the area were teeming with pedestrians at the time of the crash. Witnesses described a loud crash and then gasps from horrified witnesses.

“We heard a screech and then a big boom. It sounded like an explosion to me,” said Teresa Richard, a 31-year-old security guard, who was sitting across the street when the wreck happened.

She said she worried at first about a terrorist attack, before she looked up and saw the cab.

“At first we thought it was a garbage can, but it was way too loud for something like that,” said Haley Holmes, 27, an employee at See’s Candies, which looks directly onto the crash scene. “I heard the gasps before I actually saw” the crash scene.

The crash left a tableau of destruction at the intersection, with the severely damaged taxi in the middle of the sidewalk and the cylindrical news kiosk on its side in several pieces between the vehicle and the street.

San Francisco police investigators were canvassing the neighborhood for surveillance video Tuesday afternoon in an attempt to figure out what happened.

“I am very worried,” said James Polk, 50, a local minister who rushed to the scene after he heard the crash happened at the spot where he gets his shoes shined every other week. “That’s my shoeshine man.”

Kimberly Veklerov and Jenna Lyons are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com, jlyons@sfchonicle.com. Twitter: @kveklerov, @JennaJourno.