Days Inn Lufkin

2 injured when SUV hits motel

GALVESTON — Two motel guests were injured Monday when a tourist from Lufkin accidentally drove her SUV into one room and broke through the wall of another.

An ambulance took the guests, one from each room, to the University of Texas Medical Branch, but their injuries weren’t life threatening, Galveston police Lt. Joel Caldwell said.

Brenda Harvey, of Lufkin, recently arrived in Galveston while vacationing with her grandson. The two had just returned from a lunch buffet and were headed to their room at America’s Best Value Inn and Suites, 6311 Central City Blvd., Harvey said.

“I was putting it in park, and the next thing I know I’m in the building,” Harvey said. “We just got down from Lufkin. Our room is right up above that.”

Investigating officers determined the crash at 3:40 p.m. was accidental and that neither alcohol nor drugs was involved, Caldwell said.

“The approximately 60-year-old female driver of the vehicle pressed on the gas instead of the brake, driving through two rooms of the hotel,” Caldwell said.

Harvey and her grandson weren’t injured.

All of the SUV, with the exception of the rear hatch and bumper, smashed through an outer wall, which faces the parking lot.

Once inside the first room, the SUV pushed debris through an interior wall and into a second room, apparently trapping one of the guests briefly until firefighters and medical crews arrived.

One of the guests, a woman, had a bump on her head, Harvey said.

Representatives of the city’s building department were called to the inn and determined the SUV couldn’t be moved until an engineer signed off on the process.

Four rooms, including the two above the accident, would be unavailable, a front desk clerk said.

“We were planning on spending a couple more days until the accident happened,” Harvey said. “God is good, and hopefully he takes care of us.”

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