Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Crash sends semi into business

No one is seriously injured in the seven-vehicle accident that started with a fender bender.

By REBECCA CATALANELLO
Published April 19, 2006

[Times photo: Melissa Lyttle]

A chain-reaction crash sent this tractor trailer and a sport utility vehicle into a sandwich shop at Busch Boulevard and N Boulevard.

TAMPA - Business was winding down inside CT's Sandwiches around 3 p.m. Tuesday when glass, dirt, a semitrailer truck and an SUV came flying through the front wall of the Busch Boulevard restaurant.

"It felt like someone had set a bomb outside the window and it just exploded," said Melissa Sanderson, a CT's employee for 10 years.

One moment, Sanderson was joking with one of her regular customers. The next, she was digging through overturned tables and chairs to find the woman.

What occurred wasn't the result of a bomb, but a chain of events that Tampa police Lt. Charles Stanbro said started with one car rear-ending another and ended in a seven-vehicle collision that sent three people to a hospital and tied up traffic for several hours.

Here's how, according to Stanbro:

Three westbound vehicles were in the left turn lane of Busch Boulevard preparing to turn south on to N Boulevard when the third vehicle, a white car, rear-ended the red Isuzu Trooper in front of him. The driver of the white car then pulled into the center lane alongside the Isuzu he'd just rear-ended, straight into the path of the semitrailer truck hauling a load of sand.

That's when things got really hairy.

The semi rear-ended the white vehicle in front of him and then crashed with a green Oldsmobile that was at the front of the left turn lane. But the semi didn't stop there.

It careened southwest toward the diner, smashing into the back of a parked Ford Focus with an 81-year-old woman inside. Then, it shoved a red Ford Explorer through the wall of CT's and sideswiped a parked red Nissan.

Sanderson's mother, Angela Lynn Sanderson, 48, was working in Nicola's Donuts, which is connected to the sandwich shop, when she heard the boom. Debris sailed through the air, and the doorway between the two restaurants caved in on itself.

"My heart was in my stomach," Angela Lynn Sanderson said. When she heard her daughter's yells, her worry subsided a bit just knowing Melissa was alive.

Eight people were in the restaurant at the time of the crash, Melissa Sanderson said - five customers and three employees. One customer, who works at the Lowry Park Zoo, was sitting with her back to the window and got covered with tables.

While Melissa Sanderson tried furiously to help the woman, she noticed the semi driver wasn't budging.

Instead, he remained in the cab with his hands raised over his head, the doors locks and windows rolled up, Sanderson said.

Witnesses said the man spoke only Spanish and seemed at first to believe that people outside the truck were urging him out to arrest him.

Rather, Sanderson said, they were worried the diesel fuel leaking from the truck might catch fire.

A Spanish-speaking woman from one of the other businesses in the strip mall at 902 W Busch Blvd., grabbed a baseball bat and broke one of the truck windows, finally persuading the driver to get out.

The man was soon taken to a hospital, and was not seriously injured, according to Stanbro.

If there was an upside to the accident, it's that no one suffered serious injuries, according to police. Besides the semi driver and the CT's customer who had been pinned beneath the restaurant furniture, the driver of the green Oldsmobile was taken to a hospital for medical help with non-life-threatening injuries.

Esther Schreifels, 81, had just climbed into her parked Ford Focus and stuck the key in the ignition when she felt the semi hit the rear of her car. A CT's employee for 15 years, she'd just ended her shift. Suddenly, dirt was everywhere, and she couldn't see a thing.

"I thought I was a goner," she said.

Looking on the scene she said she kept wondering whether she would have lived if she'd pulled out of her space just a few seconds earlier.

Jim Mousseau, owner of CT's for 13 years and of Nicola's for six years, watched in disbelief, his hands in his pockets as a tow truck worked to extract the crumpled SUV and crushed semi from the front of his business.

"I'm in a state of shock now," Mousseau said.

Between the donut shop and the sandwich shop, the business is usually open seven days a week, making its best-selling Cubans and specialty cinnamon twirls for its customers.

Mousseau said he doesn't know how long it will be before the black beans are simmering and the pastries are frying. But he had a message for his regulars.

"Hang in there," he said.

"We'll be back," Angela Lynn Sanderson added.

CT's employees said they've witnessed many crashes at the intersection over the years. In January, a Chamberlain High student was critically injured there. Police said a driver ran a red light as she was crossing the street.

Rebecca Catalanello can be reached at 813 226-3383 or rcatalanello@sptimes.com

[Last modified April 19, 2006, 02:10:35]