May 24:
A man who reportedly drove his vehicle through the window of a Niles seafood market wasn’t going to let that interfere with his plans to get a haircut.
“He was as calm as could be, getting his hair cut,” said June Saraceno, owner of Hair Designs Unlimited in Niles, describing the driver’s demeanor just minutes after the crash.
The 80-year-old Skokie man had driven his silver, four-door vehicle into the front window of Captain Alex Seafood, 8874 N. Milwaukee Ave., said Niles Police Cmdr. Robert Tornabene.
He then got out of the vehicle and walked several doors down to his hair appointment, Tornabene said.
Photos taken of the scene show a vehicle lodged in the store’s front window, in a strip mall located between Oak and Elizabeth avenues.
“We believe he mistook the gas pedal for the brake, jumped over the [parking] block and drove into the building, breaking the window and door,” Tornabene said.
No structural damage was caused to the building and no injuries were reported.
Saraceno said she did not witness the crash, but was inside her salon when the police stopped in looking for the driver.
“When the police came and asked if an older man had walked by, I said ‘no’, not knowing that a client, an older man who had been in the salon before, was sitting having a hair cut.”
After the barber had finished cutting his client’s hair, the man acknowledged his involvement in the crash, she said.
“He said, ‘Oh, yeah. That’s my car. I had an accident. I have to go now. That was me [the police] were looking for’,” Saraceno quoted the man as saying.
“He just didn’t want to miss his haircut appointment.”
- chicagotribune.com