By JOSEPH KELLARD
The manager of the Crown Shoppe cards and gifts store on Sunrise Highway was standing behind a bank of cash registers when an Oceanside motorist crashed her car through the rear of the store, shattering glass and shelves and mangling merchandise at about 11 a.m. on July 21.
"It was very scary," Iglicki said. "I heard about the London bombings on the news earlier and that's the first thing I thought of when I heard the boom of the crash."
The driver was in a parking space in the lot behind the store when the car sped up on the sidewalk and through the store window, Rockville Centre police said.
"The vehicle lunged into the building," said Lieutenant Dennis Marcel. "We're not sure if it was a driver error or a mechanical error. There was some damage to the car and some damage to the store. But no one was hurt."
Marcel declined to identify the driver, other than to say "she was an Oceanside woman."
About 15 to 20 patrons and employees were in the store when the car barreled through the window. Iglicki said three patrons were waiting on line to check out and dropped whatever merchandise they were holding and ran to the front door, as did everyone else in the store, Iglicki said.
On hearing the crash, employees at a Starbucks just a few doors down from the card shop ran to the accident scene.
"The woman in the car was very shook up and crying," said Starbucks employee Christine Nicholas, who was behind the counter assisting customers when she heard "a big crashing sound" come from the parking lot.
Nicholas and a coworker, Linda Fleckenstein of Oceanside, got the woman some ice water and a towel as she remained seated in the driver's seat for several minutes after the crash. "She was all shaken up and saying, 'Oh my God'," Fleckenstein said. Both Iglicki and Nicholas said the women repeated that she'd never gotten a traffic ticket in her life.
Gail Lynch, a receptionist for dentist Dr. Joel Heller, whose office is next door to the Crown Shoppe, was sitting at her front desk when the car crashed nearby where she was sitting.
"It literally sounded like a bomb with the sound of breaking glass and all," Lynch said. "Dr. Heller was doing surgery on a patient at the time and came running up front. We ran outside to see what had happened."
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