It was a very close call for one of Country Touch Cafe’s regulars Wednesday morning.
“As the dust has settled, you think, ‘Wow, I could’ve been in between the two vehicles’,” said Joshua Allen.
Allen had arrived at the cafe around 6:30 a.m. and sat down in a booth, ready to eat breakfast when the crash happened.
“I had just been in my vehicle when I stepped out to meet a friend for breakfast here at Country Touch. About 45 seconds later, I heard a crash, and a couple things go through your mind,” Allen said. “As I saw others in the restaurant jump up and start acting, you just switch gears.”
The sound, Allen says, was alarming.
“Did some dishes fall in the kitchen? We’re in earthquake country, so that kinda goes through your mind a little bit,” he said.
After hearing the loud crash, without hesitation, Allen and others sprang into action.
“One guy grabbed a crowbar out of his work truck; we’re all yelling, ‘Call 911! Get a fire extinguisher’,” Allen recalled.
One of Country Touch’s managers told KSBY the car burst into flames twice, but several patrons still rushed to help to try to save a life.
"It took about a minute-and-a-half, two minutes to get the door open enough where I and another gentleman jumped in, pulled the guy out, put him on the sidewalk,” Allen said.
“I’m proud of those citizens!” said Atascadero Police Chief Dan Suttles. “I think it’s wonderful when people step up and try to help out others; it’s part of what we should do as good people.”
According to Suttles, driving while intoxicated was ruled out as a cause of the crash.
“It appears, at this time - after our investigation, we were able to put all the pieces together - that he, the driver, perhaps fell asleep behind the wheel, veered off onto the side of the road and struck a parked vehicle, and that parked vehicle, in turn, was propelled into another parked vehicle, and then another,” Suttles said.
The chief added that northbound El Camino Real at Palomar Avenue was closed after the crash. The road reopened a couple of hours later.
“I’m not an expert by any means, but you see the point of impact, and this impact pushed a two-ton truck 15 feet into my vehicle,” Allen said. “There were parts of his vehicle that were a block away.”
Suttles said that in the two hours that the road was closed, investigators collected a lot of data. With the information they gathered at the scene, he says they’re able to put together a pretty good idea of how fast the car was traveling at the time of impact, but that will take some time.
“We don’t have an estimation on speed but, definitely by looking at it, you can tell, you know, fast enough to cause some serious damage,” he said.
Suttles said the driver was taken to the hospital following the crash and sustained at least one fracture and some abrasions.
