Water Cooler

2 Injured When Semi Crashes Into McDonald's

GRAND PRAIRIE (CBS 11 News) ― Tuesday evening, a semi-truck crashed into a McDonald's at Interstate-20 and Great Southwest Parkway in Grand Prairie.

Two people were injured. Both are restaurant employees who were working close to the drive-thru at the time of the accident. Authorities say neither suffered serious injuries. The driver of the truck, 43-year-old Adrian Vasquez of Arlington, wasn't injured.

Video from Chopper 11 showed one of those two being taken away from the scene on a stretcher. That person was transported to Methodist Medical Center in Dallas.

Witnesses say the driver was filling up at a nearby gas station when the truck lunged forward several dozen feet and crashed into the side of the restaurant.

"He was refilling diesel, and he accidentally slipped in some gas, and then hit that truck and then slipped right down so he couldn't pull the handbrake and stop it," said Neal Patel, who witnessed the event.

Police say the truck was unoccupied at the time of the crash. The brakes either failed or were not set when it crashed, police say.

Two unoccupied vehicles were also damaged. The driver of one of the vehicles believes human error is the only logical explanation.

"I'm a truck driver," said Karen Spikes. "So there's no way he could have been doing what he should have been. He didn't pull his brakes – that could have never happened. You pop the breaks, those trucks are not moving. I don't care what you do to it."

Kids inside the restaurant's playground were only a few feet away from the damage. "I felt it shake and I thought, "Oh my God, what was that?" I thought maybe a car or something," said Mchael Trevino.

The restaurants cooler and electrical wiring will have to be replaced, which will cause the restaurant to remain closed for at least a week. The employees will have to be relocated to other McDonald's locations until this one reopens.

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