A driver injured seven people, four of them badly, when he drove on a sidewalk in the northern Italian city of Modena on Saturday and then got out possibly holding a knife, the mayor said.

Early eyewitness accounts said the driver, aged in his 30s, apparently “aimed for the sidewalk, hitting a bike, then crashed while slamming head-on into a woman, badly hurt with both legs crushed”, mayor Massimo Mezzetti told local media and the ANSA news agency.

The car then crashed into a shop window.

“He was seen with a knife in his hand, but he didn’t manage to stab anyone.

It seems like he was trying to hit someone,” the mayor said.

Police have arrested the driver and are questioning him, he added.
Mezzetti told RaiNews channel that four of the seven hit had been seriously injured.

One witness told Italian broadcasters the car had arrived at high speed on Emilia Centro street, which is very busy on Saturday afternoons.

“I heard impacts and I saw people getting run over, ” he said.

“The car got to me and I managed to throw myself to the ground,” said the man, whose head was bloodied.

“The driver seemed to be high or drunk, he didn’t seem to be in a normal state. ” He and several other pedestrians chased him down when he tried to run off, disarming him after he produced a knife, he added.

The mayor, Mezzetti, thanked “those citizens who showed courage and civic duty”.

He added: “We need to understand what’s behind this act. But it was a dramatic event.

“I am deeply shaken. Whatever it was, it was extremely serious. If it turns out to be an attack, that would be even more serious,” Mezzetti said.