A vehicle slammed into a palm tree in Redlands early Sunday morning, trapping the passenger inside and sending both occupants to the hospital. The crash happened around 3:04 a.m. in the 800 block of Brookside Avenue, setting off a scramble by local fire crews to free the trapped passenger from the wreckage.
Redlands firefighters and police responded to the scene alongside crews from Loma Linda Fire Department and ConFire EMS, according to onscene.tv. The passenger was pinned inside the vehicle after the impact, and firefighters worked to extricate them from the damaged car before paramedics could begin treatment.
Both the driver and the passenger were transported to a local hospital, though the severity of their injuries has not been disclosed. The Redlands Police Department is investigating the collision, and the circumstances that led the vehicle to strike the tree remain unknown, per the same report.
Another Recent Redlands Tree Collision
The Brookside Avenue crash comes just days after a separate, unrelated collision in Redlands also ended with a car striking a tree. A driver was killed when their car veered off eastbound Interstate 10 near Wabash Avenue and slammed into a tree, a crash that drew a response from Redlands Fire, Yucaipa Fire and CONFIRE EMS, as Hoodline previously reported. That same stretch of freeway had already seen trouble three weeks earlier, when a two-truck collision split a semi-trailer against a bridge support near the Alabama Street off-ramp on September 11.
There is no indication the two incidents are connected, but their proximity has put a spotlight on weekend driving risks in the area. A 2025 UC Berkeley SafeTREC analysis found that 36.6 percent of fatal and serious speeding-related crashes statewide happen on weekends, a trend that lines up with both the Sunday morning timing of the Brookside Avenue crash and the earlier freeway fatality.
For now, investigators have not released any further details about what caused the car to leave the roadway and strike the palm tree. No additional information was provided at the scene, leaving the cause of the crash an open question for Redlands police as they continue to piece together what happened in the overnight hours.
