Suspected impaired driver crashes car upside down into Starbucks drive-thru

PUYALLUP, Wash. - A woman somehow escaped injury after crashing her SUV up against a building at a Starbucks drive-through south of Puyallup, officials said.

Police later said drugs were likely a factor in the crash. "This could have been a lot worse," the Pierce County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

The incident unfolded at about 11 a.m. Tuesday at a Starbucks drive-through in South Hill near 132nd Street East and Meridian Avenue East. Police and emergency crews responded to the scene after receiving reports that a car had flipped over and crashed into a building there.

The wrecked SUV was found precariously balanced on its nose against another car and a frozen yogurt store. The driver was able to get out of the vehicle on her own. She was not seriously injured.

Two other cars and the exterior of the yogurt store were damaged in the crash. None of the occupants in the other vehicles were hurt.

"It was just very scary," said Angela Rogness, who was in one of the cars struck by the SUV. She was in the line with her 8-year-old son when the SUV smashed into her hood and windshield. There was so much damage, she couldn't open her door, and told her son to get out and run, fearing the now-vertical SUV was going to fall on them.

"And he didn't want to leave me, but I'm like, 'Logan, you've gotta get out,' " she said. "I was afraid (the SUV) would go in, and then he ran out to a woman.... God saved us."

A preliminary investigation found that the 42-year-old woman was headed north on Meridian Avenue in a white SUV when she went through the 132nd Street intersection, hit the curb and some trees, flipped over and struck two cars in the drive-through.

Initially it was thought that the woman had suffered a medical episode. But further investigation showed that drugs were likely a factor in the crash, the Pierce County Sheriff's Office said in a Twitter posting.