Elderly Driver Crashes into Denny's Pet World

An elderly woman failed to stop while parking her car and crashed into the store, since 1974 a fixture at the upper Totem Lake Mall, just after noon on Tuesday. The driver and a woman inside the store suffered minor injuries.

No animals in the store suffered any injuries.

“She was pulling in to park at Denny’s Pet World in one of the disabled slots and didn’t find the brake,” said Kirkland Police Department spokesman Lt. Mike Murray. The car stopped in the store and "knocked over a shelf, which struck another woman inside.”

A Kirkland Fire Department aid crew took the driver to Evergreen Hospital just two blocks away. The woman inside the store was going to have a friend drive her to the hospital as a precaution. Neither injury appeared life-threatening.

Starla Morton, one of the store managers, said the crash left a major mess, but that all the animals were just fine and the store was open. She said the owner was busy “patching things up right now.”

Murray said the crash was being investigated Tuesday afternoon, but it appeared to be accidental and “just one of those things.”