A 100-year-old driver ploughed into a crowd of children outside a Los Angeles primary school on Wednesday, injuring nine children and two adults.
Preston Carter apparently jumped the curb in his powder-blue Cadillac and drove into bystanders, some children as young as four, who were milling around the Main Street Elementary School.
Classes had ended and parents were buying their children after-school snacks from a stall on the pavement when the incident occurred.
Preston Carter, 100, talks to police outside Main Street school, LA
Four of the children were in a critical condition, according to the city's fire department, but are now stable expected to survive.
Carter was not injured and was not arrested. He told police that his brakes had failed, causing him to lose control of the car.
Carter later told KCAL-TV he had a full driving licence.
"You know I'm sorry about that. I wouldn't do that for nothing on earth. My sympathies for them."
Witnesses told AP that the crowd banged on his windows and screamed for him to stop, but children were trapped underneath the car, with rucksacks, shoes and packets of sweets strewn across the road.
Police Captain George Rodriguez said he believed it was a "miscalculation" as his backed out of a parking space.
"The gentleman is elderly. Obviously he is going to have some impairment on his decision making."
Carter's 78-year-old daughter, Ella Fleming, told the LA Times the family was grateful that no one was killed.
She said that her father would not be driving any more and that he was planning to give his car to the family.