LAWRENCE, MASS. (WHDH) – Three people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries after a car crashed into a packed restaurant in Lawrence early Monday morning, officials said.
Security video catches a car as it barrels toward the Terra Luna Café windows, bounces off, spins around then slams backward through the next pane of glass.
Yessinia Gentry and her husband Elvys Blanco were sitting right by the window when the car hit. Gentry suffered a broken arm and several bruises, Blanco was also injured.
The couple’s night out turned into a nightmare.
“I said, ‘What’s that explosion?’ Because my body and my face go to the floor. And I get up so fast — I don’t if you can see in the video, I get out so fast,” she said.
Not realizing she herself was hurt, Gentry said she ran to her husband.
“When I was looking for him and he could not move because I thought he was dead,” she said. “I said, ‘Wake up, wake up. Don’t leave me by myself. You have to be alive we have a family wake up.'”
The couple and one other person were sent to the hospital with what were described as minor injuries.
“I look at the video over I think three hundred times and say, you know, ‘I’m glad I’m here for my wife and family and my children,’” said Blanco
Police said the 26-year-old Lynn man who was behind the wheel at the time was speeding.
“Doesn’t appear that alcohol was a factor,” said Chief Roy Vasque We’re still investigating but I think it might have been more speed than anything.”
Essex Street is a tightly congested road lined with businesses with a speed limit of 30 miles per hour. But, the chief said this driver was going so fast, that the car left the roadway and popped the curb.
“If anyone was on the sidewalks that would have been a problem then obviously there were some tables that were shoved out of the way,” said Vasque. “You’re talking about a three to 4,000-pound vehicle into a business. You could have had serious injuries if not death.”
The Lynn man will be facing a negligent operation of a motor vehicle charge. There were no additional details immediately available.
An investigation remains ongoing.
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