No one was hurt after a man drove his car into and through a Dollar Tree in west Boca Raton.
“We started screaming because we saw it all happen,” explained Kristina Spadavecchia.
She works at Hair on Fire, a salon two doors down from the dollar store on US 441 near Palmetto Park Road.
“He went right over the curb,” she explained.
The hair stylist said she saw a car fly across the parking lot and slam through the Dollar Tree storefront.
“It was loud, like a big loud smash,” she said.
“We just heard the noise,” added Bianca Gutierrez, who also works at Hair on Fire. “The car came from all the way over there. It was going like 60 miles per hour.”
Spadavecchia and Gutierrez rushed inside the store moments after the crash. They said the car didn’t stop until it hit the back wall of the store.
“Glass was everywhere, half the store was taken out. Unbelievable,” Spadavecchia said.
Jorge Henkle visits the Dollar Tree about twice per month. He missed being at the store during the crash by about two hours. After seeing the damage for himself, he’s amazed no one was hurt.
“A little bit unbelievable because usually about this time there are a lot of people paying and it was very close to the cashiers,” Henkle said.
According to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, the man behind the wheel told deputies his car had a mechanical failure. They did not write him a ticket.
Sweeping broken glass and rearranging the store was an unexpected way to spend the afternoon, but everyone in the shopping plaza knows things could have been a lot worse.