8 Hurt as Car Plows Into Crowd : Accident: Driver, 82, loses control of Corvette at an Anaheim auto auction. Most injuries appeared to be minor.

An 82-year-old man lost control of a Corvette at an auto auction Wednesday and plowed through a crowd of people, injuring himself and seven others, police said.

“It was a zoo around here,” said Malcolm Phillips, a Santa Ana auto dealer who was looking for bargains at the auction when he witnessed the accident.

“One guy was thrown right out of his shoes. His shoes were lying on the ground,” Phillips said. “One guy was flipped in the air, and his head was cut real bad.”

Most of the injuries, however, appeared to be minor and none were life-threatening, police said.

The accident occurred about 1:50 p.m. at the California Auto Dealers Exchange at 1320 Tustin Ave. when Donald F. Gulledge, of Orange, tried to drive a silver 1978 Chevrolet Corvette from a parking lot onto the auctioning blocks about 80 feet away, police said. The auction exchange is exclusively for dealers to buy and sell autos at wholesale prices. Anaheim Police Sgt. Richard Zschoche said that investigators have not been able to determine whether the accident was caused by a mechanical error, as Gulledge claimed.

One thing investigators were certain about, Zschoche said, was that “it was lucky not more people were hurt.” There were more than 500 people on the car lot at the time of the accident, police and witnesses said.

“Looks like he did a pretty good job of missing people,” said Anaheim Fire Capt. Alex MacLean. “He said the accelerator got stuck.”

But Phillips said that Gulledge “obviously became panicked and didn’t know what to do.”

Reached at his home Wednesday night, Gulledge, who was extremely upset about the accident, said he tried his best to avoid the crowd. He said the Corvette’s engine died twice as he tried to move it inside the auction warehouse. As he started the motor a third time, “the car just took off,” he said. “It went zoom, it went wild and then I saw all these people in front of me.

“I tried to miss them. I didn’t think I hit anybody until I looked back and saw two people on the ground. I feel so bad,” he said. When he was told that none of the injuries were life-threatening, he cried and said “Thank God.”

After striking several people, Gulledge slammed into a chain-link fence and then ran into five parked cars before coming to a stop, MacLean said.

Gulledge, who sustained a cut to his arm, had been an employee of the auction house for 13 years, he said. One employee, who refused to give her name, said that the dealer’s exchange likes to hire seniors to drive the cars because “they are more reliable.”

“The teen-agers tend to be wilder with the cars,” she said. “The older people are more reliable and more careful.”

A security guard said the managers of the auto exchange were out of town in San Diego at a Department of Motor Vehicles seminar and would have no comment until the investigation is completed.

Injured the worst were Elmer Buxton, 38, of Cupertino who went to Western Medical Center-Anaheim with head trauma, and Itamar Lieberman, 34, of Los Angeles, who went to Placentia Linda Hospital with head trauma and broken legs, police said. They were both listed in stable condition.

Also injured with various cuts, bruises and complaints of pain and taken to local hospitals were Juan Rodriguez, 33, of South Gate; George Goldamez, 6, of South Gate; Mark Johnston, 29, of West Hills; Hezavay Abbas, 26, of Encino, and Razman Barzgarian, 48, of Anaheim.

Times staff photographer Mark Boster contributed to this report.