Lunch was ruined for diners Monday at the Las Vegas restaurant Egg & I, after a car plowed through the eatery's patio, injuring 10 people.
The car, which was traveling eastbound on Sahara Avenue
a few blocks west of the Las Vegas Strip, swerved into the median, spun, hit two other cars and then barreled into the restaurant around 12:30 p.m. PT, witnesses told NBC station KSNV of Las Vegas.
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It was unclear what caused the black Lexus sedan to careen out of control, according to The Associated Press, but two men who were in the car jumped out and attempted to run away.
Restaurant attendants tackled them though, holding them until police arrived at the scene.
Firefighters had to extricate four people from beneath the vehicle, including a boy who was 12 or 13, witnesses said. The injured were taken to two hospitals, and some were hurt seriously, said Las Vegas fire spokesman Tim Szymanski.
Suziliene McDonald, a diner who works with a nonprofit trauma and counseling agency in Las Vegas, said she helped injured people before officials arrived at the scene.
"[A woman] was on her stomach," she told KSNV. "The only reason that car did not fall down on her was there was a chair that was kind of jacked up holding it and a portion of it, but it was on her, too. To the left of her was her son.
"His uncle was under the car and trying to hold it up over his nephew."
Two girls appeared to have been cut by flying glass, she said. One woman with a broken leg asked where her purse was.
There were as many as 150 people inside the eatery at the time of the crash, said Manager Sarah Gehringer, who was knocked from the restaurant into the kitchen from the impact of the accident.
Several restaurant goers jumped over a short wrought-iron fence to catch the two men who were in the car before they could escape.
"He kept saying he blacked out," McDonald said of the driver, who sat shirtless in handcuffs on the sidewalk while police investigated. "But he was awake when he ran from the car."
Police said the men likely face felony charges. The driver could face as many as 10 felony charges.
"As serious as it was, we are amazed there were no fatalities," Szymanski told The Journal-Review newspaper.
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