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Extended-Cab

Pickup Crashes

Through Glass,

Into Restaurant


BY BILL JONES
and TOM YANCEY
STAFF WRITERS

The Waffle House Restaurant at 2761 East Andrew Johnson Highway was back in business by 12:30 p.m. Wednesday following a 9:10 a.m. accident in which a pickup truck ran into the business.

A pre-fabricated metal and glass wall was damaged when a pickup truck crashed into the interior of the restaurant.

The damaged wall was quickly boarded up. 

"We closed temporarily, but we re-opened about 30 minutes ago," the Waffle House spokesman said about 1 p.m. Wednesday.

The restaurant, he said, will remain open on its regular 24-hour-a-day schedule.

GPD Officer David Lewis, who is investigating the accident, said he viewed video from the restaurant's security camera system that showed the accident.

Lewis said the video showed the pickup truck pull into a parking space as though the driver was preparing to park.

But the pickup truck did not stop and smashed through the restaurant's wall and into the interior of the restaurant.

In so doing, Officer Lewis said, the truck struck three women who were walking past the checkout counter where two other women were paying for their food.

Officer Lewis identified the driver as Baudelio (B.C.)  Lopez, 84, of 2815 Cedar Creek Road. His wife, Rebecca Lopez, 71, was a passenger in the truck.

The officer said he interviewed the driver at Laughlin Memorial Hospital, where he had been taken for treatment.

He said B.C. Lopez had "no complaints of medical problems," but could not recall what had happened either.

Only the three women who had just entered the restaurant were struck by the truck as it pushed its way into the restaurant, Officer Lewis said the video showed.

Two women and the restaurant's manager, who had been position near the point where the Ford Explorer extended-cab pickup entered the building escaped injury, police said.

But the three women who had just entered the restaurant were pushed forward as the truck crashed into the restaurant, Lewis said.

Victim Renee Freeman, of Johnson City, said she and her friends Tina Slagle and Tina Whittaker, both of Jonesborough, were walking to their table inside the Waffle House when Freeman heard what she described as a "blast" and was pushed forward along with her two friends.

Freeman said Slagle suffered a foot injury, while Whittaker suffered rib injuries. Both were taken by ambulance to Laughlin Memorial Hospital. Freeman also told a Sun reporter that she was driving herself to the hospital.

Freeman said she and her friends had traveled to Greeneville to do some Christmas shopping.
"It was like being in a movie," Freeman said of the accident. "I looked up and I said, 'thank God I'm alive.' I don't know how I survived it."

Freeman also said she felt as if she had had an angel on her shoulder during the incident. "There sure was today," she said.

B.C. Lopez and his passenger, and wife, Rebecca Lopez, 71, also were taken by ambulance to Laughlin Memorial Hospital.

On Wednesday afternoon, a hospital spokesman said B.C. Lopez was in the process of being admitted to the hospital, while his wife had been treated and released.

Tina Whittaker and Renee Freeman also had been treated and released, according to the hospital spokesman.

Tina Slagle was still being treated in the hospital's emergency room at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, the hospital spokesman said.

For more information and stories, see today's edition of The Greeneville Sun.