Emergency services in Canberra are trying to free a person still trapped after a car was driven into a shopfront in the southern suburb of Weston, leaving two others injured and the vehicle wedged inside a massage business opposite a major shopping centre.
ACT Ambulance Service and Fire & Rescue crews were dispatched to Brierly Street late Thursday evening local time after reports that three people were trapped when the car punched through the front of Harmony Tree Therapeutic Massage and Day Spa, a few metres from Cooleman Court.
Rescue operations under way
Authorities said two trapped occupants were extricated and taken to hospital; their conditions had not been confirmed when this bulletin was filed. A third person remained inside the building with the car, requiring structural stabilisation before rescuers could safely reach them.
Witnesses told ABC reporters that five ambulances and two fire trucks lined Brierly Street, with police closing approaches to the strip mall. Images from the scene showed the sedan buried past its bonnet in the ground-floor treatment rooms, with shattered glass and building debris spread across the footpath.
Retail strip on edge
Shopkeepers in Cooleman Court said staff heard a loud impact and saw flashing lights within minutes. Traders were asked to keep customers inside while engineers assessed whether the shopfront wall could collapse further. It was not immediately clear whether the driver was among the injured or whether the vehicle had mounted the kerb from the car park or the roadway.
ACT Policing had not released a statement on speed, intent or impairment by the time emergency updates paused overnight. Traffic controllers diverted buses that normally loop past the centre, and paramedics set up a casualty clearing area in case additional patients emerged from neighbouring suites.
What happens next
Hospital networks in the capital region often receive trauma cases from Weston via Canberra Hospital; officials urged the public to avoid the area so cranes and rescue tools could be positioned. Workplace safety investigators may join the inquiry if employees or clients were inside the spa at closing time.
For Canberra residents, the crash is a rare urban entrapment event—three people caught in a single vehicle inside a suburban service business—rather than a highway pile-up. Until police explain how the car crossed the footpath, the priority for ACT agencies remains the slow, careful extraction of the last patient still pinned in the wreckage.
Weston Creek locals said the massage spa and neighbouring retailers normally stay busy until late evening on Thursdays, when workers from nearby government offices stop in before heading home. Any customers who left moments before the impact may hold dashcam footage from Brierly Street’s roundabout, and ACT Policing is expected to appeal for witnesses once the rescue phase ends.