CANOGA PARK, California - Shoppers at a Target store in Southern California had to run for cover when a 72-year-old woman's car smashed into the store.
A Los Angeles newspaper reports the elderly driver was backing out of a parking garage when she crashed into the building. Two shoppers were injured when an elderly female driver plowed into a Target store in Canoga Park on Friday.
Paramedics rushed to help the two injured customers and the driver after the vehicle slammed 50 to 60 feet through the store's rear metal emergency exit doors and went crashing into an electronics department display and the two customers.
A 29-year-old woman suffered serious head trauma and was listed in critical condition. A 56-year-old man suffered a hip injury.
"In looking at it, it is like threading a needle, but if you look at how the street is laid out, there is an intersection right before those doors where one can see how an individual can drive straight through and actually thread that needle and go through those doors," said Los Angeles City Fire Capt. Jaime Moore.
Investigators say the elderly female driver was coming down a parking garage off-ramp and drove straight through the doors, never hitting the brakes.
Her son, who didn't want to speak on-camera, says he believes his mother accidentally hit the gas instead.
Crews had to push the BMW out from inside the store. It was a startling sight for shoppers.
"The car is in there, there's stuff everywhere, there's tape everywhere, it's something not used to seeing when you go into a Target," said witness James Weiss of Chatsworth.
