Brooklyn collision sends sanitation truck careening into deli
BROOKLYN (WABC) -- Several people were injured when a private sanitation truck slammed into a deli in Brooklyn early Friday.
The incident happened around 2 a.m. at Dekalb and Bedford avenues in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section.
The recycling truck was extricated from the store just before 5 a.m., but the damage was already done. The building has been evacuated and the residents of the apartments above displaced as the Department of Buildings evaluates the structural integrity.
Police say the dump truck collided with a Volkswagen Passat in the middle of the intersection and then careened out of control and into the bodega.
The cab of the truck was completely in the store, with the owner saying the vehicle came about halfway inside. There were two people inside working at the time, one behind the counter and the other was walking on the opposite side of the deli.
They are both OK, with cuts and bruises, though they were transported to the hospital as a precaution.
Abdul Ali lives in the apartments above and is one of the owners of the deli. He says he was sleeping at the time and was startled awake.
"The whole building was shaking," he said. "I got scared, and I came down and see the whole truck inside the building and inside my business...I think he was driving too fast, and that's what makes all the problems."
The deli is family owned and operated for some 30 years, and the owners say they can't begin to calculate the significance of their loss. Still, they will try to move as fast as they can to get things repaired, as this is their livelihood.
They say it's a major blessing that the two workers inside were not seriously injured.
The investigation into the cause is ongoing, and authorities were looking into reports that the driver of the Passat ran the red light.
