CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. (WLS) -- A car crashed into the front window of a restaurant in far northwest suburban Crystal Lake and injured four people Thursday evening.
Chopper 7HD was over the scene around 6:45 p.m. Thursday. While the vehicle was no longer lodged in the building, one of the front windows of the Buffalo Wings and Rings on Carlemont Drive was completely smashed in and the front entrance was blocked off by police tape.
The car appeared to be in the process of being loaded onto a tow truck.
Crystal Lake police said a Nissan Altima was trying to park in front of the restaurant around 5:30 p.m. when, for unknown reasons, it drove over the sidewalk and struck the building before coming to a stop inside the restaurant.
"Tables were piled up on the side of the car because, you know, the car went right through all the tables," said Bridget Vrtis, part-time worker at Buffalo Wings and Rings. "It's so strange to see a car in the middle of the place that you work, in the middle of a restaurant, it doesn't belong there."
Vrtis and her fiance Colin Kasprak were working next door at the tattoo shop at the time of the crash.
"Just sitting there tattooing then all of a sudden you hear this loud thunder," Kasprak said.
He said he was in the restaurant just 10 minutes before the crash.
"It was just crazy the amount of speed that it took for that car to be stopped and go through these glass doors," he said.
Police said four adults were hurt in the incident, with injuries ranging from minor to serious, though they did not release any details about the victims or the nature of their injuries. The four were taken to local hospitals for treatment.
The driver of the vehicle, an adult male, was not injured, police said.
An investigation into the incident is ongoing.