Investigators still do not know what caused a truck driver to veer off the road and smash into the garage of an auto shop early Tuesday morning but the owner of the shop is temporarily out of business.
“He was driving northbound on 7th Street and he just went and rammed into the garage part of my business,” said Lucky 7 Auto Shop owner Napoleon Morazan.
Lucky 7 specializes in tires, breaks and alignments and has stood at the corner of 7th Street and Dunlap since 2001. Morazan says authorities have deemed the garage inoperable.
“There’s a structural damage to the building that it is not safe,” he said. “When it comes to the shop, tires, breaks, and oils we’re definitely out. Completely out of business in that aspect.”
He’s expected to lose thousands in the six weeks he says it will take to get his garage – his main moneymaker – back up and running.
“It definitely concerns me because there is nothing I can do,” he said.
But he’s keeping a positive outlook on a terrible situation. Especially one leading right up to the holidays.
“Nobody got hurt on my staff, nobody got hurt of the customers, and that’s a blessing because would it have been during business hours somebody would’ve got hurt,” Morazan says. That’s one thing that I’m gonna be grateful for this Thanksgiving is that I’m gonna be able to be with my family alive and healthy. Same thing with the employees and nobody got hurt.”
The driver of the truck was transported to the hospital and is said to be in stable condition. Meanwhile, Morazan says the two mechanics he has working out of the shop will be temporarily moving to other shops so that they have a job in the meantime.
