A driverless Waymo car blocked a road as first responders raced to a five-alarm apartment blaze that killed three people in Texas, according to bodycam footage of a frustrated cop trying to move it.
The car was seen sideways across a Dallas street as around 100 firefighters responded to the deadly blaze sparked by a gas leak at the Clyde apartments Thursday, Fox 4 News said.
“Go, c’mon, go!” frustrated-sounding Dallas County Deputy Constable Jonathan Banda shouted, according to the footage shared by his department.
“Man, there’s nobody in here,” he is heard exclaiming after realizing it was a driverless car.
He continued saying “C’mon!” as the high-tech car connected to a customer support agent.
“You need to move this car ASAP, please. There’s a fire around the corner. You need to move this car. You’re blocking the roadway,” Banda told the agent.
The remote Waymo staffer blamed it on “a minor issue,” telling the officer, “Give me one second and I can get it to go.”
Banda then stressed, “We have units coming out. It’s a large structure fire. We got to get it clear. Come on, man, we need you to move it!”
The officer was eventually granted permission to manually move the car and clear the road just in time.
“I knew I had to clear the way for the firefighters coming in. I could hear the sirens coming in,” Banda told FOX4. “At that point, another engine was coming down the street with the hoses they needed to deploy out there.”
The blast, which was triggered by a gas leak, claimed the lives of 38-year-old mom Marisol Perez, her 18-month-old son Eric Jr., and civil rights advocate Sylvia Collins.
Perez’s husband wasn’t home at the time as he was on a work trip, CBS News reported.
Meanwhile, Oliver Jimenez, who lives across the street, said he saw a “little girl barely getting out of the debris.”
The apartment exploded 15 minutes after the first set of firefighters had arrived. Around 100 firefighters were dispatched to the inferno in total.
Waymo told Fox 4 News that it has a team dedicated to ensuring first responders are trained on how to engage with the vehicles in such emergencies.
“Safety is fundamental to everything we do, and that includes how our vehicles are designed to interact with law enforcement and first responders,” the company said.
“In this instance, the vehicle was in the process of completing a three-point turn to leave the area like other cars were doing.
“While the vehicle was yielding to other traffic passing by, the police officer approached the vehicle. While the officer was engaging with our vehicle and our remote assistance team, the street remained clear and other vehicles passed by unimpeded.
“We remain committed to working closely with Dallas law enforcement and first responders to ensure they have the tools, training, and information they need,” the company added.
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