No serious injuries reported at Reinenman’s
By Ed Nadolski
Editor in Chief
As a longtime member of the Burlington Rescue Squad Jeff Koenen is accustomed to rushing to the scenes of car crashes.
However, he never had a crash come directly to him – until Tuesday, that is.
It was about 1:20 p.m. that day when a red SUV came crashing through the entrance doors of Reineman’s True Value Hardware – the store Koenen co-owns with his sister, Cheryl Ahler, at 417 Milwaukee Ave., Burlington.
“I was the first on the scene,” Koenen said, stating the obvious.
At the time of the crash Koenen was in the pet department, which is closer to the middle of the store. Had it been just 10 minutes earlier, however, Koenen and Ahler were standing in the office adjacent to the entrance.
The force of the crash knocked down the divider between the office and the entrance and pushed the desk where Koenen was standing about six feet to the side.
As it turned out, the building bore the brunt of the damage as none of the estimated 30 people in the store, including employees, was hurt.
“Luckily no one was in the entryway at the time,” Koenen said.
The woman who was driving the vehicle was transported to Aurora Memorial Hospital of Burlington for a medical issue.
Koenen declined to say the condition of the woman or the possible cause of the crash, citing medical privacy laws.
Immediately after the crash, Koenen went to render medical aid to the driver while the store was evacuated as a precaution until structural damage was ruled out.
“Once we got her out of the vehicle I basically pulled myself from EMS mode into store owner mode.”
To read the full story, see the June 7 edition of the Burlington Standard Press.
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