SUV crashes through Crystal Lake flower shop, injuring employee

CRYSTAL LAKE – A Toyota Highlander burst through the glass front of Countryside Flower Shop, Nursery and Garden Center on Wednesday, injuring a longtime employee, after its driver mistakenly hit the gas rather than the brakes, police said.

Cashier Deanna Lowenheim was standing at one of two cashier stations at the shop, 5301 E. Terra Cotta Ave., when she heard her co-worker scream “Oh my God.” She ran away from the glass window before the SUV’s impact, which destroyed the window and products and damaged parts of the building.

“I turned around, and I saw the car there,” Lowenheim said. “When something like that happens, it’s chaos. There’s glass flying, a car, and I’m looking for my co-worker.”

Greenhouse manager Lori Harms said they found the 50-year-old woman who has worked there for about 15 years beneath a pile of debris. Employees who rushed to the garden center waited for Crystal Lake Fire Rescue Department paramedics to arrive before moving the employee.

Emergency crews responded to the scene about 11:40 a.m. Fire department Lt. Rick Kaiser said the woman was taken to Centegra Hospital – McHenry with injuries that were not life-threatening. The female driver, who Crystal Lake Deputy Police Chief Tom Kotlowski said was 72 years old and from Crystal Lake, was treated and released at the scene, Kaiser said.

Kotlowski said the driver was heading east through the parking lot when she “mistakenly applied pressure to the accelerator when she meant to apply pressure to the brake.”

No citations have been issued, and Kotlowski said he didn’t know whether any would be.

Lowenheim and the injured employee were the only people in the garden center at the time of the crash. Harms said the situation could have been entirely different just a day earlier, as there were many more people there.

“We’re grateful that it wasn’t Mother’s Day weekend,” Harms said. “We’re grateful that we had rain this morning so it was a slow morning. We’re grateful there weren’t any children in our carts, checking out. We’re grateful the building is sound enough that it absorbed the impact.

“It could have been so much worse.”

The store will remain open. Employees had started to gather materials to board up the damaged section of the building after an inspection by a Crystal Lake Building Department official about an hour after the collision.