A Frenchwoman and her daughter narrowly avoided drowning inside their car after she accidentally drove it into an indoor swimming pool.
The 38-year-old is said to have confused the brake pedal and accelerator of her Jaguar XF while trying to manoeuvre in the car park at the community leisure centre in La Ciotat, near the southern city of Marseille.
The powerful car then shot over a slope behind the parking bay and crashed through both a safety fence and the building’s glass facade.
It continued to travel for at least a hundred feet before landing in the 25-metre swimming pool.
Around twenty swimmers were in the water at the time, according to local news outlet Var Martin.
The mum and her daughter were trapped inside the car, but two lifeguards and a member of the public managed to pull them out from underwater.
The accident happened at 8.50pm local time and it’s understood the lifeguards had only arrived around 20 minutes before to open the pool for late-evening swimmers.
Nobody was injured apart from a man who sustained minor cuts from the broken glass.
The mother and her daughter were taken to hospital as a precaution and were said to be doing well.
Local officials last night said firefighters would proceed to remove the vehicle.
The pool will remain closed for some time due to ‘significant damage’ to the facility, they added.
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