FULTON, N.Y. -- Tom Heppell was behind the counter, starting to get an order ready Monday afternoon at Slice 'N' Go Deli in the city of Fulton when suddenly a tractor-trailer slammed into the shop.
There weren’t any customers inside at the time, but his wife, Sue Heppell, was sitting a few feet away. The Heppells, who have run the deli shop at the corner of Interstate 481 and Division Street for more than three decades, said they had no idea what was happening in that moment.
“My husband said something to me and then, all of a sudden, there was a loud bang,” Sue Heppell said. “Then everything started to fall on top of us.”
The tractor-trailer driver, Kristen Levy, 29, of San Antonio, Texas, said she hit a patch of ice and lost control, slamming into the deli shop at about 2:15 p.m.
The shop was destroyed by the truck, with walls knocked out and the roof falling down. The truck came to a stop in the pile of rubble that had seconds before been a building.
“I just heard people so I knew that it wasn’t a good situation,” Levy said. “Obviously there was a kitchen and I could smell (gas) so I didn’t know if we were all going to blow up.”
Levy said she climbed out the driver’s side window of the cab to get to safety.
Inside the deli shop, Tom Heppell -- also known to many in the community as Dennis -- yelled to his wife who was still sitting in a chair. Something, possibly a full-size refrigerator, was leaning against her knee, she said.
“I was going hysterical,” Sue Heppell said. “I couldn’t move at first."
The Heppells could smell the gas too. They knew they needed to get out fast.
Fulton city firefighters said the tractor-trailer broke the gas line in the building, causing a natural gas leak. That’s why they temporarily closed Interstate 481 in both directions after the crash, “so we didn’t have an ignition source,” Fulton Assistant Fire Chief Shane Laws said.
Levy and the Heppells had somehow escaped unharmed by the time rescue crews arrived minutes after the crash, Fulton Fire Capt. Adam Howard said.
Sue Heppell said she was able to wiggle free from whatever was leaning against her knee, then she and her husband pushed through the debris and wreckage. As they exited the building, she said, some good Samaritans were there helping them.
“We found a small opening,” Heppell said. “I started pushing the stuff enough so we could inch our way out.”
Fulton firefighters and Menter Ambulance crews said they evaluated the Heppells and Levy at the scene, but did not transport anyone to the hospital.
Although Sue Heppell said her knee still hurt Monday night, she and her husband said they were happy to be alive.
“I’m elated because I’m not dead,” Tom Heppell said. “We got lucky. We were in the right place at the right time.”
Tom Heppell, 64, and Sue Heppell, 63, said they had planned to retire at the end of March. They had run the business for the last 31 years.
Throughout those years, they lived in Fulton where they also raised their three children. Now they have two grandchildren and were looking forward to retirement. One person had expressed interest in the business, Sue Heppell said, but no one had bought it. The couple has business insurance, she said.
The Heppells say they thank God that they survived.
“The sandwich bar (Tom Heppell was standing behind)," he said, “is folded up like an accordion."
The Heppells say if there had been customers in the store, they would have likely been standing exactly where the tractor-trailer hit.
“I thank the good Lord,” Tom Heppell said, “because they wouldn’t have survived.”
Levy said she was heading south on Interstate 481 when her tractor-trailer slid on ice and veered off the west side of the road, crashing into Slice 'N' Go Deli.
“The ice block -- boom -- bumped me off and veered me right into the business,” she said.
Levy said she has driven tractor-trailers through 48 states over the last three years, and she’s never been in a crash until Monday.
“I am so sorry," she said, standing in the freezing cold outside yellow police tape Monday night as an excavator worked to free her tractor-trailer.
The tractor-trailer was straddling the deli shop’s foundation, said Howard, among the first fire officials on scene. At the same time, the building was resting on the truck, Laws added.
Fulton police and firefighters, Menter Ambulance, National Grid and Big Red Towing responded to the scene.
National Grid crews dug along Division Street to shut off the natural gas line. They also shut off the power to the building.
Big Red Towing later lifted the tractor-trailer away from the building, then crews used an excavator to remove the roof and other parts of the building off the deli shop to free the tractor-trailer. Their main concern, firefighters said, was to remove the tractor-trailer without having it rupture the fuel tank.
Levy, a driver for Super Ego Holding in Chicago, said she had picked up aluminum cans at Ball Corp. in Goodyear, Arizona, and was about eight minutes from dropping them off at TQL in Fulton when the crash happened.
When emergency crews opened up the back of the truck after the crash, there were rows of Bud Light Seltzer cans. One official at the scene said the cans were empty.
Levy said she had planned to drop off those cans in Fulton and pick up another load to bring it to Charlotte, N.C.
But she never made it there.
“I’m just glad we all made it out,” she said.
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