Car crashes into Jacksonville MetroPCS and salon

A car plowed through a Jacksonville store and a salon off Merrill Road on Friday.

“I never thought that I could be dead today,” said Salon 2100 hair stylist Eugenia Gantea.

The driver crashed through the glass storefront at MetroPCS and then plowed through the wall into Salon 2100.

“I was curling somebody’s hair and all of the sudden we heard this, and it was like slow motion. And then we turned around and in comes a car. But thank you, Jesus, two girls, if they’d been sitting in their seats, they would’ve been dead. But they was in the back. We had brought soup today. And thank you, Jesus, I give him the praise, and the glory, and the honor,” hair stylist Marsha Parrish said.

Gantea had just stepped away from her station moments before the car crashed right through it.

“If I would have shampooed her hair, we would be dead. Both of us,” said Gantea.

On the other side of the wall, MetroPCS clerk Clarissa Lowell had a close call.

“The car kind of side-swiped me a little bit. But luckily, I made it out the way,” said Lowell.

Gantea said the driver was arriving for a hair appointment.

Ivette Parissi said the elderly driver told her she accidentally hit the gas instead of the brakes.

“She was able to walk, she was conscious. She knew what had happened. So then I helped her out and I grabbed her a chair,” said Parissi.

Both businesses have a lot of clean-up to do before they’ll be able to reopen.

Cox Media Group