High-speed chase ends in crash into KFC restaurant

Published: March 26, 2009

The Tribune-Star (Texas Newspaper)

TERRE HAUTE — A high-speed chase Wednesday night ended with a pickup crashing into a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet and left a man hospitalized and the restaurant manager thankful no employees were hurt.

The chase ended when the Chevy S-10 to avoid stop sticks placed by police on Lafayette Avenue, and the truck tumbled several times and deflected off the southeast corner of KFC, police said.

The impact shattered two storefront windows and left structural damage to the corner of the building.

“We’re just lucky he flipped a few times before he hit the building,” said KFC outlet manager Theresa Watts, while she surveyed the damage Thursday.

A hit at full speed could have been catastrophic. When the truck smashed into the building, one of the KFC’s five stunned employees was standing near a soft drink machine on the south side of the seating area.

“A tire landed right behind her,” Watts said. “She’s still digging glass out of her hair.” That employee’s only injury was a cut lip.

The KFC store was closed Thursday while workers repaired the damage. Watts, the manager, said she did not know when it would reopen.

It is the second time in recent years an errant motorist has closed her store down. A few years back, someone threw a cigarette from a car that ignited landscaping mulch and sent smoking billowing through the building.

“We don’t need anymore bad luck,” she said, “especially the way the economy is. We don’t need to be shut down.”