Exclusive: Video Shows BMW Smashing Into Gas Station
NORTH BAY VILLAGE (CBS4) - Stephanie DeMarco says she is still stunned that no one was seriously injured when a BMW smashed through the glass of a Hess gas station convenience store last Thursday on the 79th Street Causeway.
Surveillance tape obtained exclusively by CBS4's Peter D'Oench shows some frightening images from the morning of January 3rd.
The tape shows how close the car came to running people over.
Nearly a dozen customers and employees are seen going about their business on what appears to be a normal Thursday morning.
Suddenly, the surveillance tape shows the white BMW smashing the glass and plowing into the store, knocking over display cases and shelves with food items and soda and water bottles.
At least two people who are seen on the tape are almost run over by the car. The tape shows the BMW sitting in the store after the accident. The driver, 42-year-old Marileine Camacho, is not seen getting out of her car.
D'Oench showed the tape to Stephanie DeMarco, who was inside the store with her 3-year-old daughter Layla. After the crash, they were separated for a few moments and DeMarco said she was terrified. Layla's lip and tummy were cut when she was knocked down inside the store.
"It's amazing no one was seriously injured," said DeMarco. "I can't believe how close the car came to the people. That was amazing. They were almost hit. It sounded so loud when it happened. It was like a bomb going off."
"Then there was a lot of commotion and people were making noise," she said.
D'Oench asked Layla if she remembered the crash.
"Yes," she said.
"Are you ok?"
"Yes," she said. "I feel ok."
"That's what my daughter remembers," said Stephanie DeMarco. "She didn't get her donuts that day."
The driver told CBS4 that she drove into the store by accident.
She said her foot got tangled up on the rug on her car and her foot got stuck on the accelerator.
"Instead of braking, I was accelerating," she said at the time.
Camacho was cited for careless driving and driving without her prescription glasses, which is a criminal citation.
CBS4 also caught up with Jerome Diaz after the crash, who said he would be seeing a doctor because he injured his back when the car crashed into the store.
"I was walking out there to get gas and this happened," Diaz said. "It sounded like a bomb. People were screaming. It was amazing."
