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UPDATE: 60 injured after Cadillac plows into Va. parade crowd

Posted at 6:27 PM, May 18, 2013
and last updated 2013-05-19 10:28:44-04

(CNN) -- A 1997 Cadillac plowed into a parade crowd in Virginia on Saturday, injuring dozens of spectators and leaving others pinned underneath the car.

The accident injured up to 60 people, with 10 hospitalized, but none of the injuries appeared life-threatening, CNN affiliate WJHL reported.

Rescuers lifted the car to free people trapped beneath it after the accident in Damascus, said Bill Nunly, the town's police chief.

A medical condition caused the driver participating in the parade with hikers to lose control and plow into spectators, WJHL reported, citing Pokey Harris, an emergency management coordinator with Washington County. It was unclear what condition it was, and the driver was not identified.

Revelers and trail blazers were filing down a street in the town near the Tennessee state line to celebrate the Appalachian Trail when the sedan veered off the road.

It "then moved into the hiker parade, where it started striking hikers," Nunly said. It also crashed into other vehicles.

Hikers and rescuers dashed after the car to stop it.

"The doors were open; people were able to make entry inside," Nunly said.

Timothy Tabat was in the right place at the right time.

"I reached back and grabbed the handle for the driver's side rear door, jumped into the car, and put the car into park," he said.

Then the crowd that had pursued the large car lifted it up to free those pinned underneath it.

Of those injured, at least five or six were "trauma victims," an emergency dispatcher said.

The accident occurred during the Hiker Parade at the annual Trail Days festival, which honors the famed hiking trail.

Dalton Thomson told CNN affiliate WCYB that he was pushed out of the way of the oncoming car by a hiker.

"We all looked back. There were hikers on top, hikers under the car," he said. "It was unreal."

CNN's Chelsea Carter, Janet DiGiacomo and Jennifer Moore contributed to this report.