FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – For the second time in a little more than a year, a car has plowed through the front of a family-owned Chinese restaurant in Farmingdale.
It happened at around 11 p.m. Monday night.
According to Nassau County police, a 57-year-old woman was behind the wheel of a 2023 Hyundai Santa Fe when it ran off the road, struck two cars, and then slammed into the Great Wall Chinese Restaurant on Broadway. A fire broke out after the crash, but it was quickly put out. Good Samaritans pulled the woman out of the flaming car.
“Somebody was yelling ‘jump out of the car’ because it was literally on fire. And she wouldn’t jump out, we don’t know why. So the two men rushed and pulled her out,” witness Varsha Khanna said.
The woman and a 30-year-old man who was in a parked 2017 Ford Mustang were both taken to the hospital.
Surveillance video captures the roar of the car and the dramatic scene as it crashed into the restaurant.
Same location has had three crashes in five years
The merchants are beside themselves because the same thing happened at the same restaurant a year ago. In that case, the car just missed the owners inside, a hardworking immigrant family that can’t believe it’s happened again.
“Very upset. Very upset. My sister-in-law crying all night, no sleeping,” the restaurant owner’s brother Ken Chen said. “Everything is news.”
After the last crash, they advocated for installation of new cement bollards out front, which they credit for stopping the car this time. The tiny strip mall where the restaurant is located sits at the end of Broadway, where it dead ends into Boundary Avenue.
Tearful restaurant customers stopped by in shock.
“The community raised so much money for them, and the night they reopened they were overwhelmed with orders, and it’s just so sad to see it. They’re the nicest nicest people,” customer Grace Palm said.
Area residents are upset by the series of crashes.
“It’s, like, non-stop, the last five years,” Wayne Connors said.
“I think we should have something in the middle, some kind of barricading,” Lakashy Khanna said.
Residents aren’t sure if the problem is the road or the drivers.
“It could be both, to be honest with you. It’s happened twice. It could be both,” one person said.
Actually, it has happened three times. Five years ago, a car plowed into the Subway shop next door.
The Town of Oyster Bay had just installed reflective signs and improved lighting at the strip mall. They are awaiting the accident investigation to be complete before they can determine what to do next.
