No one was hurt Wednesday morning when a car crashed into the Cornelia Goodwill store – twice.
“The call for service went out that someone had struck the building and unfortunately that’s not a rare occurrence,” said Cornelia Police Chief Jonathan Roberts. “We have automobile versus building accidents quite frequently.”
Then things changed when Cornelia police heard the next bit of information.
“Dispatch gets back on the radio and says they’ve struck the building again,” Roberts said. “At that point, everybody’s on an extra heightened alert so we all responded down there and unfortunately it was a young lady that had been under the influence of duster cans. She was huffing the duster cans and actually passed out and she didn’t know where she was.”
Roberts said the call also was heightened when a caller reported to dispatchers that the driver involved had been an employee of Goodwill.
After a few minutes passed and the fumes dissipated, the young driver came to herself.
“The scary thing for us is there was a car seat in the back and thank goodness the child was not with her at the time,” Roberts said. “But she was under the influence of huffing a duster can. That’s what resulted in her accident.”
Roberts said the young woman, whose name he did not immediately release, was arrested and taken to jail.
“After it kind of wore off and her senses were back about her, she gave a full explanation of what was going on and the life choices that were happening that resulted in using this so, even though she went to jail, I know some resources have been afforded to her and I know we’ve spoken with some family and we really hope the young lady is able to get the help that she needs,” Roberts said.
The late-model sedan struck the bollard then deflected off it and struck the architectural brick side of the building near Bath & Body Works, causing only minimal damage to the wall’s appearance.
Asked how common it is for Cornelia police to deal with suspected inhalation cases, Roberts said it has been about a decade since the last one.
“We were talking about that earlier today and it was probably early 2000s when that really became a popular thing,” Roberts said. “We have not seen that type of incident in at least 10 years – not to say it’s not happening, but it’s just not a prevalent thing that we run into every day anymore. Unfortunately, stuff like that is coming back around and now with fentanyl being laced into everything, everybody’s just looking for that next thing.”
