By VICTORIA STONE-MEADOWS
A CAR smashed into the side of a shop in Wray Crescent in Mount Evelyn early Thursday morning 5 March, causing significant damage.
The CFA were called to the scene shortly after 6am on Thursday where a car had hit the corner of the shop.
Lieutenant Luke Roy of Mount Evelyn CFA said it was a very unfortunate event but luckily no-one was seriously injured.
“The male driver was taken to hospital for assessment just as a follow up,” he said.
“Both airbags in the car deployed so the impact was quite hard. He suffered possible minor injuries but was taken to hospital as a precaution.”
The car hit the corner of the building, twisting a brick pillar and resulting in damage to the exterior and interior of the building.
A council building surveyor also attended to assess the structural integrity of the building before having it temporarily made safe until repairs could be undertaken.
The crash is not being treated as suspicious.
Michelle Puckey, who owns Mikki B Fashion and leases the building that was hit by the car, said she was lucky the damage wasn’t worse.
“He luckily hit the brick pillar on the side of the shop which stopped him from going any further,” she said.
“It could have been so much worse; we were really lucky the pillar saved him and saved the building.”
While Ms Puckey said she felts lucky there wasn’t more damage, she was sympathetic to the driver whose car hit the building.
“The poor guy driving might not be feeling so lucky,” she said.
Ms Puckey was not be able to open her store for trade until building assessors from her insurance company determined the safety of the building.
“I’m not in a position to trade until I get an engineer to say it’s OK for me to have people in here,” she said.
“Customer safety is my biggest concern.”
Mikki B Fashion has only been in operation for seven months and Ms Puckey said she was not going to give up on her Mount Evelyn shop.
“I’m here for the long run even though these little setbacks can be disheartening.
“I’m determined to stay in the building but it is too hard to speculate at this stage.
“I’m hoping it gets a thumbs-up and can be fixed soon and I can trade while it’s being done,” she said.
