Four hurt in East Broad Street crash (UPDATED)

ELYRIA — After a multi-vehicle crash demolished the corner of Nikki's Good 2 Go, raining debris down from the drop ceiling, all that was left intact was a photo of the owner's mother and sister, and the boxing gloves the women wore to their chemo treatments that had hung in the small lobby. "All of our certificates, all of our business licenses, everything was on that wall," restaurant owner Nikki Evans said. "Every picture frame was shattered, we found them on the ground, except for the one with my mom and my sister and the serenity prayer in it. It was perfectly intact." Still shaken up less that 24-hours later, Evans said her late mother and sister had to be looking down on them to keep the crash from being fatal. Four people were injured following a crash that sent two vehicles into the East Broad Street building Wednesday night, just after Nikki's Good 2 Go and the Zip Thru beverage had closed. At 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Charles Locklear, 48, of Elyria, was driving a red Chevrolet Cruze eastbound on East Broad Street. Seth Tatem, 34, also of Elyria, was driving a white Chevrolet pickup truck north on Garford Avenue, traveling at what Elyria police Capt. Bill Pelko termed "a high rate of speed." The truck went into the intersection and struck the Cruze. Both vehicles then went off the road and struck the corner of Nikki's Good 2 Go, 308 1/2 East Broad Street. The force of the vehicles tore the corner of the building off, before the pair crashed into a concrete barrier outside the entrance to the Zip-Thru beverage from the parking lot. Two employees were in the Nikki's Good 2 Go at the time of the crash: Madison Sutton, 18, of North Ridgeville, and Rachel Alaimo, 38, of Elyria. Both were hurt after the drop ceiling collapsed on them. Evans said both girls had stitches, one with a shattered nose that will require surgery and the other is missing a tooth, with another tooth pushed into her gums. Looking at security footage, Evans said the Cruze had pulled into the lot to go to either the drive-thru or her restaurant, but finding them both closed, had made a left out of the parking lot before being hit by the pickup truck. She speculated without the Cruze taking the brunt of the impact, Sutton and Alaimo could have been killed. "I really think that my mom and my sister were looking out for those girls," Evans said. "The way everything happened, if that car wouldn't have turned, wouldn't have drove through the parking lot at that exact time, those girls probably would not be alive right now." Evans opened Nikki's Good 2 Go about three years ago, with purple signage and decorations in honor of her mother and sister who both died of pancreatic cancer. She said the pandemic hit them hard, forcing them to choose between paying for insurance or electricity — they chose the utility to keep the space open. "It's definitely a rough road that we're on right now," she said. Until they are able to get in and clean the debris out of the space, it is unclear how much of their equipment is salvageable. Two vehicles parked near the duplex next door were also damaged. One, owned by an employee at Nikki's Good 2 Go was hit by the engine from the Cruze, Zip-Thru owner Steve Sedivec said. His employees left just before the crash, he said. They're physically OK, he said, but are pretty shaken up. "I think they set the alarm at 9:28 p.m. and they were actually parked up in front of Nikki's and they left about a minute before the accident happened," Sedivec said. "So if that accident would've happened a minute earlier or they would've left a minute later, they would've been outside right when it happened in that area." He said he has insurance on the building, and hopes to reopen the drive-thru in the next week or so, once he gets the go-ahead from the city. "Couldn't even make it two years without having something pretty major happen," he said, referencing a fire in North Ridgeville that destroyed his family's Zip Thru on Jaycox Road in 2019. Sedivec, who also owns the duplex, said no one was home in either apartment and the damage that building sustained didn't appear to be structural. Locklear was taken to University Hospitals-Elyria Medical Center. Tatem had to be extricated from the truck and was flown by LifeFlight to MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland. Tatem's condition was unknown Thursday evening. Evans, who knows Locklear's family and has seen him at the restaurant on many occasions, said he was in serious condition Thursday with several broken bones and other injuries. "What gives you the right?" Evans said of Tatem. She added later, "I hope he lives, and he gets to see what he's caused and he has to pay for it. It's not fair, you don't get to just do that -- put all your pain and suffering onto somebody else, that's not acceptable." She said her business closure will not only impact her and her employees, but the families relying on their pay-it-forward board, or the rice they give away at the end of the night. The crash remains under investigation. No charges were filed as of Thursday evening. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.