It’s hard to believe that no one was killed Thursday, Feb. 25, after a car crashed through a repair shop in Muncie, IN. The surveillance video, which was posted on the WISH-TV Channel 8 website, captured the crash which seriously hurt one technician as he was working on a car.
Below is the article as it appeared on the WISH-TV Channel 8 website.
Car Slams into Muncie Auto Repair Shop
Updated: Thursday, 25 Feb 2010, 11:02 PM EST
Published : Thursday, 25 Feb 2010, 9:17 PM EST
By Mike Corbin
MUNCIE (WISH) – Several people in Muncie are lucky to be alive after a car crashed through an auto repair shop.
Surveillance tape shows what happened when, just after noon Thursday, a woman driving a white car slammed through the shop. One worker was seriously hurt, but it’s a miracle no one was killed.
“It was just a mess. It was chaos. We were yelling, ‘Call 911!’ I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” shop owner Earl Follin said Thursday.
Follin was standing just feet away when the car came through. He said the woman hit the gas trying to avoid an all out crash with another car, but clearly panicked and kept pedal to the metal, wheels spinning and smoking.
“She floored it and never let off, came up over the curb, came into the building and smashed everything up against here. Thank God I had a lot of stuff down through there that took some of the blow,” Follin said.
Mechanic Tim Jenkins was even closer and watched in horror as the car took fellow mechanic Mark Reynolds down, slamming him into heavy metal equipment. The impact broke Reynolds’ ribs and twisted his legs. He yelled for help.
"I thought, how in the world could a car come crashing that far through a brick wall? How fast would you have to be going to come through a brick wall and get that far into the building?” Jenkins said.
Miraculously, no one else was hurt, including the woman driver who can be seen getting out of the car dazed and confused, with the car still running. However, Earl estimates the business lost well into the tens of thousands of dollars.
The only thing that held up the roof following the crash Thursday were two wooden beams.
Follin said Muncie Police wanted to condemn his property, but he was able to convince them otherwise for the time being.
“I’ve been here 15 years. I’m doing record business, everything is great, record profit last year. Then a car comes busting through the walls, shut down my whole business today,” Follin said.
Mark Reynolds was taken to Ball Memorial Hospital and is recovering.
Follin is expecting insurance representatives to come out to the property Friday morning.
The woman who crashed the car had just come from getting her nails done and, by the way, the car she was driving was not a Toyota.
To read this article on the WISH-TV Channel 8 website, visit http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/local/north_central/car-slams-into-muncie-auto-repair-shop.
