Eight people were injured when a garbage truck crashed through the wall of a corner-store deli in Bedford-Stuyvesant early Friday, police said.
A Metropolitan Recycling garbage truck was driving westbound through a green light on Dekalb Ave. at Bedford Ave. when it swerved to avoid a black sedan which had run the red light at the intersection, police said.
The driver of the garbage truck then lost control of the behemoth vehicle and careened through the store front of the open Gourmet Deli on the northwest corner of the intersection.
Mohamed Ali, 20, whose extended family has owned and lived above the bodega since 1983, said his two cousins were working in the store when the truck hit.
“They were behind the cash register and the deli counter on the opposite side from where the truck hit – thank God,” said Ali, who was sleeping in the apartment above the bodega during the crash. “The building shook for like five minutes … I feel like my brain is flying.”
Eight people, including the drivers of the two vehicles, were taken to Bellevue, King’s County, and Woodhull Hospitals with non-life threatening injuries, authorities said.
Mohamed Abdo, 24, said his brother, Salah Abdo, 32, was working in the store with their 18-year-old cousin during the crash.
“I saw my brother outside, he just ran out of the store, he thought the building was going to fall down,” Abdo said. “He said ‘an accident happened … the truck was trying to move from the car, it went inside the building’ … His hand was in pain, his leg was bleeding.”
Abdo said the severely damaged deli has supported his extended family – in New York and in Yemen – for decades.
“We’ll try to rebuild, to assess the damage,” he said. “This store supports families, I grew up from this store, more than ten families – people back in Yemen – rely on the store.”
The Dept. of Buildings and the Office of Emergency Management were determining the structural stability of the building and police were investigating the accident.
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