Most days a trip to the post office is just a mundane part of the weekly routine unless you were at the Shelburne Post Office last Wednesday when a car plowed into the side of the building.
On Dec. 6 at around 11 a.m. Shelburne police said 75-year-old Linda Hansen attempted to park her Toyota Corolla in the lot when her foot hit the accelerator instead of the brake. The vehicle lunged and struck the building, causing significant damage to the main entrance, including knocking down one of its outside columns.
Shelburne fire and rescue and Charlotte Rescue also responded to the scene on Falls Road in Shelburne.
Hansen was transported to University of Vermont Medical Center by Charlotte Rescue for evaluation as a precautionary measure and police said there was no indication of impairment.
Postal patrons inside at the time said the initial impact felt like an explosion, and had they been just a few feet closer to the door the incident could’ve been much worse.
“All of a sudden there’s this big loud boom. We really thought it was a bomb. It buckled the whole ceiling,” Sean Moran of Shelburne said, noting that the air was filled with dust and debris falling from the ceiling.
Nearby was resident Dorothea Penar, who was just making her way out of the building when she bumped into her son’s former piano teacher.
“I stepped back into the building as she was coming in just to catch up and tell her what the boys were doing and find out what she was up to,” she said, adding that as she was standing there she noticed Sean making his way in. “I said something to Sean, and he said something to me, we always poke at each other for fun. He started walking away and boom!”
Other than just making for an interesting topic of conversation at the dinner table, Penar, a devout Catholic, said the incident left her sending up an extra prayer to her guardian angels for being at work that day.
Moran, on the other hand, joked that his zealous involvement in the town’s municipal mayhem over the years must have caused someone to seek revenge in an unusual way.
“I think someone put a hit out for me,” he laughed.
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