Woman drives into post office

An 84-year-old woman punched the accelerator of her Nissan Murano this morning when she intended to ease into a parking space.

The Murano lurched through the glass wall of the post office on Main Street, then crashed into a wall full of mailboxes and slid through the workroom.

The vehicle destroyed six carrier cases, which employees use to sort mail, and a piece of debris hit an employee above the ear and caused a small cut. Most of the carriers were at a briefing in a different room, Postmaster Kevin Brunton said.

“Five minutes later, there could have been a lot of blood. We’re really blessed,” Brunton said. “I’ve got skid marks on my work room floor.”

The driver, Marjorie Parrish, was not injured. The shattered glass and brass mailboxes only scraped the front of her vehicle.

Brunton said the customers who rent mailboxes with numbers higher than 639 might not receive mail today.

When employees rebuild the wall, Brunton doesn’t know whether any mailboxes will need replacing.

The solid metal pushed right through the wall, he said.

“They ended up clear on the other side of the building,” he said.

Brunton said delivery could lag by a short time today, but postmasters and supervisors from Fort Campbell, Oak Grove, Cadiz, Russellville and Elkton came out to help minimize the delay and clean up the office. The front counter is still open for business.

“Operationally, by tomorrow we’ll be as good as new,” he said. “There will be some mail that was destroyed or torn up a little bit.”

Customers whose mail was damaged can expect notifications, he said.

Brunton said around 10:15 this morning the carrier who sustained a cut might have already left on his delivery route.

Paramedics bandaged him up, and he declined to take a day off, Brunton said.

Nick Tabor can be reached at 270-887-3231

or ntabor@kentuckynewera.com.