Two-year-old injured in car accident on Spruce St.

and Amy Lipman A red Mitsubishi heading east on Spruce Street hit a parked Bell Atlantic truck at about 4 p.m. yesterday. Two-year-old Cubbin Lee, a passenger in the car, was injured in the accident, although he had been sitting in a child safety seat. He was taken to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia where he was treated and released, hospital officials said last night. Philadelphia resident Innchan Lee, Cubbin Lee's father, had just picked his son up from the day-care program at St. Mary's Family Respite Center on Locust Walk. Lee said he was proceeding down Spruce Street when he noticed a car attempting to turn right onto Spruce from 39th Street. He added that when the other car stopped in the middle of Spruce Street, he applied his brakes and swerved to avoid that car. But Lee lost control of his own vehicle after its wheels became caught on the trolley tracks in the middle of Spruce Street. Lee's car then crossed the center line and hit one of two Bell Atlantic trucks parked along the curb outside Mayer Hall. "I couldn't control the car," Lee said. "It just slipped and hit the other truck." Bell Atlantic cable splicers Scott Burke and Gary Kubicki said they never saw a second car. The pair witnessed the accident from Kubicki's truck, where they had been filling out time sheets, Burke said. Neither of them was injured since Lee struck Burke's vehicle. Kubicki estimated that Lee had been traveling between 30 and 40 miles per hour at the time of the accident. "He was coming down Spruce -- that's why he was going so fast," Kubicki said. "He just like lost it [on the tracks]." Cubbin Lee was thrown from his car seat as a result of the impact, landing against the inside of the windshield and cracking the glass, Kubicki said. He added that the young child appeared to have hit his head and cut his lips. After the accident, the driver's side door of Burke's truck would not open, as the door frame had been slightly bent out of shape. Shattered pieces of plastic that had covered some of the truck's lights were scattered on Spruce Street near the truck. The cable splicers said the damaged truck would be towed from the site. University Police Officer Fred Riccelli said the accident would be further investigated by Philadelphia Police.

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