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UPDATE: West Kelowna and Vernon residents injured after weekend van crash into busy restaurant

UPDATE: West Kelowna and Vernon residents injured after weekend van crash into busy restaurant | iNFOnews.ca
The driver of this van crashed into busy Kelly O'Bryans restaurant pinning a patron underneath. Photographer: Marshall Jones

UPDATE: Driver, passenger and four others taken to hospital after van drives into West Kelowna restaurant

12:00 p.m. May 13

Police say the damage could have been a lot worse following a weekend car crash in West Kelowna that caught patrons at Kelly O'Bryan's in a fright.

Four people are now suffering non-life threatening injuries after a dodge caravan rode right into the patio section of the popular West Kelowna restaurant at 3470 Carrington Road. RCMP say the van was parked before accelerating onto the patio and crashing into the side of the restaurant.

RCMP received a report at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday of several people injured and a woman trapped under the van. It took the force of six men to lift the vehicle off the Vernon woman. The woman and three others were taken to Kelowna General Hospital, in addition to the 78-year-old driver of the van and his wife who were briefly trapped inside the van.

The others injured were identified as:

– 19 year old Vernon woman

– 20 year old Vernon man

– 26 year old West Kelowna man

– 30 year old West Kelowna woman

No charges have been made against the driver but police are requesting the West Kelowna man have his license reviewed. The cause of the incident has yet to be determined.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Julie Whittet at jwhittet@infotelnews.ca or call (250)718-0428.

6:50 p.m. May 11

An afternoon patron at Kelly O'Bryans in West Kelowna was taken to hospital after being pinned under a minivan that plowed into the restaurant around 1:30 this afternoon.

Police, fire and ambulance were on scene trying to determine what happened. Reg Henry, owner of the restaurant, wasn't there when it happened, but knows the aftermath.

"Really lucky," he says. "There was a girl pinned underneath the van and six guys lifted it off of her."

He had no explanation for the accident, hearing only that the driver was parking and instead rocketed forward over concrete barriers, through a patio and into the restaurant.

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Marshall Jones

Julie Whittet

News is best when it's local, relevant, timely and interesting. That's our focus every day.

We are on the ground in Penticton, Vernon, Kelowna and Kamloops to bring you the stories that matter most.

Marshall may call West Kelowna home, but after 16 years in local news and 14 in the Okanagan, he knows better than to tell readers in other communities what is "news' to them. He relies on resident reporters to reflect their own community priorities and needs. As the newsroom leader, his job is making those reporters better, ensuring accuracy, fairness and meeting the highest standards of journalism.

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