Two children, dad taken to CHEO after vehicle crashes into Popeyes window
Two children and their father were taken to hospital Saturday evening after a car plowed three metres into an east-end restaurant, sending diners scrambling for safety as they were showered with flying glass and debris.
Cashama Charlery was ordering food at the counter of the Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen restaurant on Montreal Road at Ogilvie when she heard a blast from behind.
“After that, I could just hear screaming because I think the family that was sitting closest to the window got stuck, because they were sitting down just between the space where the car entered,” she said.
Charlery was with her husband and three young children when the red Mazda 3 crashed through the north side of the eatery. She said she was hurt by debris that flew from the collision.
Kaylie Szola, 17, was taking orders at the drive-thru when she said she heard a loud crash.
“I ran and I saw that there was a car through the window and glass everywhere,” she said. “A small boy was pinned between the booth and then I just saw a small girl screaming with her father.”
Szola said she gave the father medical gauze and told him to apply pressure to cuts on his foot.
Ottawa paramedics said an eightyear-old boy and a 13-year-old girl were taken to CHEO with moderate injuries while a male adult was also taken to hospital with minor injuries. A 25-year-old woman refused to go to the hospital and was uninjured, the paramedic service said.
Katie Leigh was outside in the drive-thru when she heard the crash. “I called 911 while my friend went to help the people get out of the car,” she said.
She says she then “went inside to see parents picking up their children and running out.
“The whole dining floor was covered in broken glass.”
One employee was tending to a child who had been knocked out. “When I spoke with her she was shaking and unable to make full sentences, clearly very shaken up from what she just saw.”
Ismael Delius, 18, who also works at the restaurant, said he was in the kitchen when he heard a crashing noise. He said the driver told him that she was trying to turn right onto Montreal Road from the restaurant’s exit.
“She told me that she was trying to avoid some cars and she was looking for the brake and couldn’t find it,” Delius said.
Paramedics responded to the scene just after 8 p.m., said Darryl Wilton, superintendent of operations for Ottawa Paramedic Service. The 41-year-old driver of the car had two children with her. None of them were injured, Wilton said.