Hours after a car was sent careening through the window of Renee’s Home Furnishings in Mattituck, a fine layer of dust still covered surfaces and workmen swept up piles of rubble and shattered glass this afternoon.
The accident, which took place at 1:10 p.m., involved Orient woman Dorothy Fisher, 89, who was driving a 2001 Mercury and stopped at the Capital One ATM, police said.
According to Southold Town Police, her accelerator became stuck and “the vehicle spun out of control”
She accelerated full speed into the side of the building, wheels spinning, and crashed right through the window and sending merchandise flying, according to witnesses at the scene.
Fisher was taken to Peconic Bay Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries to her leg by Mattituck Fire Department Rescue, police said.
Bill Gildersleeve, owner of Renee’s with his wife Debbie, was 20 feet away and had just come out of the back room, on the phone, when the unthinkable happened. “I just ducked,” he said. “I’m still shaking.”
At first, the noise was so deafening he thought the roof had caved in, Gildersleeve said. “The car came right through the side of the building. It felt like an earthquake.”
Customers in the store were not injured, Gildersleeve said.
But the building sustained “a huge amount of damage,” he said, both on the interior and exterior of the structure. Gildersleeve could not give an estimate of how much repairs would cost.
Custom-made masonry surrounding the glass window will have to be replaced, he said, a lengthy process. “It will be a long time,” before the repairs are complete, he said.
Obviously shaken, Gildersleeve surveyed the scene as workers swept up glass and boarded up the windows. “At least we didn’t get closed down,” he said, adding that at first, it was unclear if the building was still structurally sound; later, it was deemed safe.
And had the woman driven into the structure’s steel beam, the outcome might have been tragic, he said.
“You always here about these things in Manhattan,” he said. “You never think it could happen here.
But despite exhaustion after the hours of cleanup, Gildersleeve was grateful no one was seriously injured. “As long as everyone’s safe, that’s all that matters.” Of the driver, he said, “I just hope she’s okay.”
