Cape Coral police: Man having a medical episode strikes, kills woman in Aldi parking lot

Cape Coral police say they are investigating a deadly crash in an Aldi parking lot.

The investigation is at the grocery store at the Northpoint Shopping Center, off Pine Island Road and Chiquita Boulevard South.

Master Corporal Philip Mullen, public information officer with the Cape Coral Police Department, said a man was driving in the parking lot when he hit a woman coming out of the store.

Police said a 73-year-old man was pulling out of a parking space when he began to suffer from with they called a cardiac medical episode.

That’s when the man struck an 85-year-old woman, police said, continuing in reverse with the woman trapped under the car until he slammed into a wall.

Police say, for an unknown reason, the driver shifted into drive and kept driving for 87 feet.

A woman who witnessed the crash said paramedics tried but were unable to save the woman.

The woman died on scene, Mullen said.

The man’s silver Honda Accord was covered with a red tarp over it.

Investigators were on scene for several hours.

Sheila Day said she is shocked.

“It’s sad,” Day said. “It’s a very sad thing. I was wondering when I came in what had happened and I seen all the commotion over there but I didn’t realize it was so serious.”

It took officers more than three hours to investigate and clear the scene.

WINK News asked Southwest Florida law enforcement agencies if parking lot crashes are common.

Fort Myers police responded and said so far this year they have gone to 326 crashes in a parking lot, only one of them deadly.