Employees Lucky To Be Alive After Car Slams In Church's Fried Chicken Store In South LA
SOUTH LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Some Church's Fried Chicken store employees watched as chickens flew Wednesday after a driver careened her car into the restaurant in South LA.
"I said 'Whoa!, Whoaa!, Whoa!," said one witness as he saw the car about to slam into the restaurant's kitchen at Florence and Vermont.
Judith Uriazr told Lopez her brakes on her Hyundai Sonata failed after she was hit by the driver of a white Chevy.
The Chevy driver declined to talk, Lopez said.
"Because I just lost control of my car," she said.
She said she didn't see any employees as she was about to crash into the eatery.
"No, I didn't see nobody," she said "everything was blurry for me."
A man named Malek, who was selling t-shirts on the corner, said the red car made no effort to stop.
Lopez was told there was one employee named Katherine in the kitchen when another woman named Anna "move, move" and "get out" and that they had very little time ro react.
"She pushed me, cause I was still in shock," said Katherine. who said she had less than five seconds to react.
Anna, who pushed Katherine out of the way, also declined to talk. But the store's managers said both women were lucky to be alive.
"If you look at [the damage]," she said, "you can see they could have been killed."
The kitchen is a total loss. The car ended up about 3/4ths of the way inside.
