WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – A patient on her way to an appointment at White Plains Dialysis drove through its storefront in the White Plains Mall Friday morning, according to an employee inside at the time.
An employee named Laurie said she heard a boom when the car tried to park in front and accidentally barreled into the storefront around 8:40 a.m., causing significant damage. She said neither the driver, nor anyone inside the dialysis center was injured,
"Where she landed both doors were pinned in," she said. "So, I came in through the back door and was able to slide her to the passenger and make her slide back to the back and get her out the back. The back of the car was out."
Laurie recognized the patient, who said to her, "'What did I do?' And I said, ‘You don’t want to know.’"
Chris Doss, of White Plains, said his friend Herman Hilard was inside White Plains Dialysis when the car came crashing in and that he had to leave the store through the mall because the front entrance was blocked off.
“He said he just heard a loud boom,” Doss said.
Doss worked for a Toyota car dealership in Mamaroneck for 17 years and said he saw this happen more than once.
Similarly, Laurie said this has happened before at White Plains Dialysis Center.
"They said it was somebody’s grandson, but it was just the window. This one went into the treatment area," she said of the last incident a few years ago. "Thank the lord she wasn't hurt. She was just more embarrassed."
Laurie said that the store could reopen as early as tomorrow, since the waiting room in the front of the store was the only area damaged. She added it was fortunate that the incident happened so early because there were no patients in the waiting room.
"You hear a boom and a scream and it’s like, ‘what could that be?’" Laurie said. "I looked, there’s a front of a car in our unit. The last thing you’d expect to see."
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