A man was hospitalized Sunday afternoon after he was struck by a car that drove through the front doors of the Rock Hill gas station where he was shopping.
Cindy Blackmon said she was assisting a woman at the cash register of Elliott's Exxon on Cherry Road when a Chevy Lumina came through the front of the store.
"It was terrifying," she said. "He hit one person, but they said he wasn't hurt too bad. They said he had a few broken bones in his legs, but that was it."
Police did not know the man's condition Sunday evening, and the names of the man and the driver were not available, police said. The injured man was taken to Piedmont Medical Center, police said.
Blackmon didn't see what happened outside, but said the woman she was ringing up was the driver's wife.
"She went to get something to drink, and I guess he decided he would be a smart (aleck) and go on ahead and pull up to the front of the store," Blackmon said. "Well, he tried to drive from the passenger side and instead of hitting the brake, he hit the gas."
A large portion of the front of the store was knocked down, and glass and merchandise were scattered across the floor of the store. The driver was not hurt, and there were no other passengers in the vehicle, Rock Hill Police Officer R.K. Jenkins said. The cost of the damage was unknown Sunday night.
"They haven't put in a cost estimate yet," Jenkins said. "It's in the thousands, I know that."
Station owner Manoj Nampoothiry was not around when the accident happened, but came once he heard.
"I am just shocked," he said after walking around the store.
He hopes it was just purely an accident, he said.
"We don't know that person," he said. "It's not like he had any issues with us."
