Truck Crashes Through Santa Ana Office Window

Terry Costa was enjoying the quiet as he sat down to type a letter to his 80-year-old mother this morning, encouraging her to slow down and take care of herself. She hadn’t been feeling well lately.

It was 9 a.m. at the Santa Ana Restaurant Equipment Co., at 2520 S. Fairview Ave., Santa Ana, which Costa owns.

The 45-year-old businessman began pecking away at the electric typewriter keys, not knowing how long the lull in activity would last and wanting to write the note to his mother, who lives in Kent, Wash.

“I just sat down and I heard this screech outside my window,” said Costa. “I really did not think too much about it because we hear them all the time out on the street.”

But what Costa saw next made him think quickly.

A truck sliding on its side came through the plate-glass window where Costa was sitting.

“I saw the headlights and the front of the truck, and I knew it was not going to stop. It looked strange moving on its side. I wanted to get away from the flying glass, so I got up and I tripped over a box as I ran away. I fell on the floor, and the truck crashed through the window,” Costa recalled in a nervous voice.

The pickup stopped only a few feet from where Costa was working. The desk and chair where he had sat were covered with glass and debris. Costa was not injured.

It was not the first time this sort of thing had happened to the Santa Ana Restaurant Equipment Co. Before it moved to its new location on Fairview, an intoxicated motorist had driven his car into the front of the building at the old location. No one was inside when that happened, Costa said.

According to Costa and other witnesses, the pickup truck and a passenger car collided on Fairview and the truck was knocked on its side.

The drivers of the pickup truck and car were not injured, but a passenger in the truck was taken to a nearby hospital, witnesses said.