Vehicle crashes into Jones Drug Store, none injured

No one was injured Wednesday afternoon after an elderly woman crashed her vehicle through the front entrance of Jones Drug Store in Jackson.

According to Lt. Alex Broch of the Jackson Police Department, the woman had a possible medical issue causing her to crash into the front of the building. She wasn't injured, but was taken to a hospital as a precaution.

"No charges are going to be filed or anything like that," Broch said. "It was just an accident."

Surveillance video showed the woman's car, a white Lincoln MKX, crash through the front door and into the front counter, narrowly missing a customer.

Kyle Rhymer, a technician at the drug store, was working inside the building when the crash occurred.

Shelving behind the main counter was damaged after an elderly woman crashed her vehicle through the front of Jones Drug Store on Wednesday in Jackson.J.C. Reeves

"I was back here when it all happened, and I don't even remember the sound." Rhymer said. "That's the thing, I don't remember the noise, because it was a huge cluster of stuff falling and glass everywhere. I looked up and I didn't even see the car, I just saw the ceiling falling."

Brian Thompson, owner/pharmacist at Jones Drug Store, said the woman had blacked out as she was trying to park and hit the accelerator.

"Just a freak accident," Thompson said. "It was just a little old lady that was coming in here to buy some over-the-counter stuff, not even a customer of ours, and blacked out by the time she tried to park. She blacked out, hit the gas pedal and just drove straight through."

A Missouri State Highway Patrol officer whose office is next door to the drug store immediately rushed over to check on the driver, according to Thompson.

"As soon as he heard it, he rushed over here, got right to her and pulled her out of the car. She was fine," Thompson said. "Of course, they took her to the hospital just as a precautionary, just to make sure she was OK."

Tire marks remain on the floor of Jones Drug Store after an elderly woman crashed her vehicle through the front of the store Wednesday in Jackson.J.C. Reeves

Thompson was off work from the store Wednesday, but said he found out about the crash rather quickly.

"It was my day off, but about 1 p.m. my phone was blowing up with them trying to get me here," Thompson said. "So I drove back in. I'm just glad all my staff was OK, and, of course, the lady and everything."

Thompson said he contacted Wesbecher Construction Co. Inc. right away to board up the hole in the front of the store, replace a few support beams and put in a temporary door. Overall, cleanup efforts took around five hours.

"It was a lot of crashing, a lot of falling," Rhymer said, "and then a lot of broken glass and a major cleanup."

Despite the damage done to his store, Thompson said he is glad he can find humor in the situation.

A Lincoln MKX crashed through the front of Jones Drug Store on Wednesday in Jackson.Submitted

"It's a good thing we can laugh and have a sense of humor about this because nobody was hurt, and that was the most important thing," he said. "It could have been a lot different. Normally on a day we have three or four people lined up, so it could have been a lot worse.

"Everything just turned out perfectly for what happened, you couldn't have asked for a better ending. ... Bricks and mortar can be replaced, human lives can't."