JENSEN BEACH – Several people were seriously injured when a woman drove a golf cart into a dining area of a Jensen Beach restaurant.
A video released by the Martin County Sheriff’s Office shows the cart driving up a narrow ramp and into people sitting at tables at Tako Tiki on Saturday evening.
“If you look at the video, it’s pretty dramatic,” said Capt. Ruben Romero. “You can see some people almost end up underneath the golf cart.”
Romero said the cart was originally driven to the restaurant by an employee of the Ocean Breeze Resort, about half a mile away. Somewhere along the way, a woman got in the cart with him. Investigators said at some point, she was in the cart alone and tried to drive it.
“She did say she was trying to turn it on, didn’t know how to operate it and ended up crashing into tables full of people eating dinner,” Romero said.
Romero said several people suffered serious injuries, one woman fractured her pelvis. He added they do not believe alcohol was a factor.
“She did claim that she had taken a sip of an alcoholic beverage with dinner, but we did all our field sobriety tests,” Romero said. “We did all the testing that we do with our traffic and our DUI units, and the results came back that she was not intoxicated at the time.”
The woman driving the cart, whose name has not been released, was charged with careless driving causing injury.
