Jackson Free Press

JACKSON — Just after 9 a.m. today, a woman drove her car into McDade's Market on Fortification Street, crashing through the brick wall outside the cafeteria.

Police on the scene said the driver, whose name they did not release and an officer described as "elderly," apparently drove into the lot, went into a parking space and then hit the gas instead of the brakes.

"Even after hitting the building, her foot was still on the gas," officer Julianna Chisholm said a witness told her.

A woman who was working in the cafeteria inside McDade's at the time apparently was hit in the incident.

"I guess, luck of the draw, she just happened to be standing there, when (the driver) went in...," Chisholm told the Jackson Free Press. The worker was talking normally afterward, Chisholm said, and was transported to University of Mississippi Medical Center.

The driver, whose blood sugar and other vitals seemed to be normal, Chisholm said, was not speaking well, as if she had a stroke—which has not been confirmed. The driver's car had handicap insignia on the license plate. She was taken to St. Dominic Hospital.

Several people standing around the scene, including one who works in the grocery store, said they heard a big boom, almost like a bomb had gone off.

"It sounded like something blew up," a woman in the parking lot said.

Shoppers at McDade's proceeded to buy goods as usual, uninterrupted by the crash unless they chose to stop and look. Within 30 minutes, the car was up on a tow-truck bed, and cones barricaded the spaces around the scene of the accident so no one would park there.

The deli and hot-food line will be closed for the rest of the day while construction workers make repairs to the building.

This story will be updated should more information become available.

Email city reporter Ko Bragg at [email protected].