‘Came out of nowhere:’ Car with no driver rolls across 4 lanes, falls 120 feet and crashes at Mesilla Valley Mall

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico - After an extremely close call, police in Las Cruces are reminding drivers to apply their parking brakes before exiting a vehicle.

"God was watching out for everybody that was involved in that whole thing yesterday," said Gina Rojas.

Rojas told ABC-7 she and her boyfriend were leaving Dillard's at the Mesilla Valley Mall around Sunday at 2 p.m. and saw a car flying through the air.

"It came out of nowhere," Rojas said. "There was no one in the car."

Police confirmed the brakes of a white Ford Fusion were not properly applied at the Telshor Tower Plaza on 755 S. Telshor Blvd., across from the mall.

That car, with no driver, then rolled across four lanes of traffic on Telshor and then rolled "over the sidewalk and down the steep embankment into the parking lot of the Mesilla Valley Mall," according to a police spokesman.

"The fact that it crossed over Telshor in itself, probably like a game of frogger," Rojas said.

It ultimately struck an empty Nissan Pathfinder SUV in the mall parking lot. Police said no charges were filed against the car's driver and no one was injured in the incident.

Police remind drivers to:

• Make sure automatic vehicles are placed in “Park” if it’s an automatic transmission, or low gear if it’s a standard transmission
• Use the handbrake
• When parking on a slope, turn the steering wheel so the front tire closest to the curb is facing into the curb