You heard that right, a local game store Red Castle Games, had a car crash right through the front of their store. The car was involved in a police pursuit, with the driver intoxicated and high (now facing drug and alchol charges according to a local report). The crash was estimated to have occurred between 60-80mph when it hit the store front. Of course games, glass, and debris went flying, in some cases between 20-30'.
Luckily no one was at the very front of the store, so there were no injuries. The closest to the front was an employee there, Natalie Caulkins, who I had the chance to talk to a few hours ago for a first hand report. You can see the crash first hand through this video.
here is a link to a local news report on the incident
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2015/04/car_crashes_through_window_of.html
Natalie can be seen in the video below... (definitely check it out), taking charge and yelling to see if everyone was OK, and pointing to what looks like the fleeing driver. One lucky customer was barely missed by flying debris. The driver of the vehicle fled the scene with the police right on his heals and caught him in a nearby parking lot. The driver only suffered minor injuries... this could of been much worse.
The crash happened yesterday evening just after 5pm. With that Red Castle Games remains closed today, and quite possibly tomorrow as well. For a game store, these are critical hours and days that the store is not open for business, so despite the damages alone, there is the loss of business.
via Red Castle Games -Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/redcastlegames
A lot of people are asking how they can help, here are a few ways:
1. We could use a few extra hands cleaning all the dust of all the product and fixtures.
2. Once we reopen, hopefully tomorrow, Saturday 4/4, come buy a game.
3. If you can't help dust, don't want a game, help cover the costs that insurance won't with our GoFundMe campaign: http://www.gofundme.com/qsv7w2j
4. If you can't or don't want to do any of the above, send us your well wishes and share our story.
Thank you all for your support!
There are lots of costs involved in something like this, some of which are not covered by insurance, so like it says above...... anything helps, or at least drop in and pick up a game when they re-open. There is a GoFundMe account set up as well, and you can find that link above.
Here are some of the pics that Natalie was able to forward me. The plan is to open tomorrow if they can. Notice in the pictures how thick that brick wall is that was torn up. They are good people down at Red Castle Games, so especially if you are local, lets give them some positive support!
I want to thank Natalie and Matthew for taking a quick breather to talk about what happened.
