A car ploughed through a tanning salon window in a horror crash in Coatbridge.
Shocked staff were sent flying “backwards through the air” after the vehicle smashed into Indigo Sun in Sikeside, North Lanarkshire, at around 5pm on Friday.
The shop front was completely destroyed, with damages estimated at around £10,000, and one employee left with minor injuries.
Marketing manager Neal Taylor had been driving home when he received a call from one of the traumatised workers.
Neal told the Daily Record: “She was crying and in a state of shock and I didn’t really understand her at first when she said ‘a car has driven into the shop’.
“But after a minute I understood and knew everyone was okay and I said I’d be straight there.
“There were two staff members working, one was in a chair at the computer and the other was at the other end of the counter, because they were socially distancing.
“But with the impact of the crash, the explosion caused the first girl to be thrown through the air backwards on top of the other one.
“They were okay though, a bit shocked and one had a cut in her hand but that was it.”
Neal said he was faced with a scene of devastation when he arrived at the shop about twenty minutes after the incident.
Police had already cordoned off the scene and ambulance workers were attending to the workers.
He added: “It was a total mess but actually looked a lot worse than it was.
“The car was still embedded in the window and there was glass everywhere.
“But once the car was towed and we’d cleaned up a bit, it wasn’t that bad.”
Staff had been desperate to get the popular tanning salon back up and running on Wednesday following months of closure due to coronavirus.
Neal said thanks to the efforts of a 'helpful squad of staff and their families', they were able to get the shop into a state to be reopened again this morning.
He said: “We only opened the salon after lockdown on Wednesday so this was the worst timing, very annoying.
“Due to huge customer demand we needed to open again and we were able to this morning with the help of our squad of staff, their families and contractors.
“The fire service said we were structural safe to open and thankfully the doors were not smashed and still open and lock, as do our shutters.
“We’re not 100 per cent but we are safe and airtight which is great because it will take three - four weeks for us to get the shop front properly fixed.
“We were lucky in a way because no one was hurt.
“And we were definitely the talk of the town, I think the whole of Coatbridge knew within about two hours.”
A Police Scotland spokesperson said: "Around 5.20 pm on Friday, 17 July 2020, police were called to a road crash on Lorne Place, Coatbridge, where a Nissan Qashqai had struck the front of a tanning salon causing significant damage to the property.
"No one was in the premises at the time. No one has been injured.
"A 62-year-old woman has been arrested in connection with the incident, however, enquiries are continuing."
