A minivan crashed into a nail salon on Long Island on Friday. Four people were killed and nine injured, a Suffolk County fire official said.
The vehicle came to a stop behind the Hawaii Nail & Spa shop in Deer Park around 4:40pm
“There were people trapped,” Assistant Chief Dominic Albanese of the Deer Park Fire Department told reporters at the scene. “We freed them and took them to area hospitals.”
The driver was semi-conscious and taken to the hospital, Albanese said.
It was not immediately clear whether the crash was an accident or intentional, officials said. Major Suffolk County police detectives were investigating, a police spokesman said.
Photos from the scene showed a gaping hole in the storefront, which is located in a strip mall.
Eric Perez told Newsday he was loading groceries into his car across the street from the crash scene when he heard a car speeding past and then a noise that “sounded like something breaking.”
“It was a sound I had never heard before,” he said.
As he and his wife left the parking lot, he said, he saw emergency responders removing the victims from the scene.
“We saw the ambulance and first responders pulling out a body,” he said. “And I saw two women who worked there coming out on stretchers.”
According to Albanese, about 150 firefighters and medical personnel responded to the scene.
“It’s terrible. It’s going to be tough on the community, tough on the volunteer fire brigade,” he said. “But we’ll get through it.”