A car that crashed into the entrance of the Crossroads United Methodist Church located at 1100 Hague Avenue is visible from inside of the church on the morning of Sunday, December 23, 2018 in Columbus, Ohio. A woman drove into the church during morning services, injuring several people. (Brooke LaValley/The Columbus Dispatch via AP)
Congregants at Crossroads United Methodist Church in Columbus, Ohio initially thought a bomb had gone off when a Toyota Corolla driven by an elderly congregant smashed into the building during Sunday service.
Six people of the roughly 100 in the church were injured as shattered stained glass rained on them when the car plowed into the church during a special Christmas performance.
“I didn’t see anything. I just went with the flow. It slid us across the aisle,” Marie Winnestaffer, who was sitting in a pew struck by the car, told the Columbus Dispatch. “It felt like a bomb.”
Firefighters said the injured were transported to the hospital with cuts and other injuries.
A car that crashed into the entrance of the Crossroads United Methodist Church is towed out of the doorway on Sunday, December 23, 2018 in Columbus, Ohio. A woman drove into the church during morning services, injuring several people. (Brooke LaValley/The Columbus Dispatch via AP)
The Rev. Jay Anderson told the newspaper that congregants were about 15 minutes into the 10:30 a.m. service and were singing a hymn when the car crashed through the wall.
“Suddenly that wall just exploded,” he told the Dispatch. “There were pieces of glass flying and then you saw the car come through.”
Marsha McClure told the newspaper that it sounded “like the cannon at the Blue Jackets games.”
The crash left a wide hole in part of the church.
Police did not identify the driver or say whether charges were planned. Congregants told the Dispatch that the driver was a 92-year-old woman, but declined to give her name.
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