Arizona shoppers are lucky to be alive after getting mowed down by a car that crashed through a retail outlet Thursday, seen in nail-biting footage currently going viral.
“It felt like an earthquake,” an anonymous sales representative, who got hit by the car, told ABC15 of the close call, which occurred at a beauty store in Tempe. According to Tempe Police, the accident was caused after the driver inadvertently stepped on the gas instead of the brake pedal, 12News reported.
Accompanying security footage, uploaded by the Tempe Police Twitter account, starts off innocuously with two men chatting inside the mart. All of a sudden, a white sedan plows through the storefront and hits the victims before crashing through the shopping aisles. The clip concludes with the vehicle stopping and then reversing to the entrance of the store.
According to 12News, the two victims, a sales associate and a store employee, were pushed 25 feet into the outlet.
“It was just so quick,” described the aforementioned sales associate. “The wall came to us.”
Both men were subsequently taken to the hospital where they were treated for minor injuries. The sales rep said he’s recovering from cuts on his head, arms and legs, and also sports five stitches in his hand, ABC15 reported.
While the driver wasn’t charged for the crash, they’ve since been arrested on an unrelated warrant, according to Tempe police.
The sales rep, for one, is just grateful that everyone survived.
“I’m thankful that nobody died,” said the injured sales associate. “At that moment, I thought I was going to but, thank the Lord, I didn’t.”
