A 90-year-old Redmond man was booked and released Thursday afternoon after police say he drove a Cadillac CTS into a foot spa while under the influence of prescription medication.
A news release from the says the man, who turns 91 on Friday, was arrested on suspicion of reckless driving and driving under the influence of prescription drugs. Police have not yet released the man's name, and he has yet to be charged with a crime.
Three people—the driver, a spa employee and a spa patron—were sent to the hospital with minor injuries Thursday afternoon after the incident, said police spokesman Jim Bove. The collision happened at about 1:30 p.m. and was likely a result of the driver mistaking the gas pedal for the brake, Bove said.
The business, SunShine Foot Spa, is located at 16807 Redmond Way and suffered major damage.
Bove said the spa had approximately 10 people inside at the time of the collision. He said it's very remarkable there were no additional or more serious injuries.
"They're very lucky," Bove said. "The car crashed inches away from another employee."
Hanna Hoien was working next door at , which shares a wall with the spa, at the time of the collision and said it felt like an earthquake.
"Everything rattled. Literally the floor was shaking," she said.
Hoien said emergency crews arrived within five minutes and other people in the busy shopping center also tried to assist those who were injured.
"There were a bunch of people outside, and everyone of course came running," she said.
Monica Aydelotte of Legacy Commercial, the Bellevue property management company that owns the building, was on the scene after the collision and said she had never experienced anything similar to today's crash in the decade she's worked as a property manager.
"I'm still kind of blown away," she said. "This is a first."
Aydelotte said the shop front will be boarded up for some time.
Bove said incidents where drivers crash into store fronts are not common in Redmond, but they do happen.
In 2009, a 46-year-old North Bend woman drove her SUV into a preschool on 156th Avenue Northeast and injured three infants. She was charged with reckless driving and reckless endangerment, according to a report on SeattlePI.com.
Editor's note: Caitlin Moran is editor of Redmond Patch.
