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Breaking News

Three Die After Car Hits McDonald's

Aired May 15, 2002 - 08:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to very quickly put a live picture up from Philadelphia. We have just been told three people have been killed there when a car plowed into a McDonald's restaurant.

This is what the scene looks like at this hour. We have no idea what the circumstances are of this car having plowed into the restaurant. As you're looking down here, you make out what is a pretty typical McDonald's across the country, these indoor playgrounds.

The police officials there are confirming three are dead. We, of course, are getting this shot from a helicopter, and he's not wide enough at this point for us to make out exactly where the vehicle went into the McDonald's, although on that bottom left hand corner of the screen it appears as though there is some glass broken there.

The area is cordoned off, ambulances on the scene. A fire truck you can see in the upper right corner of your picture. We are being told we believe those that were killed were workers at the restaurant. You're seeing the locator now Mount Ephraim, in New Jersey, which is not far from Philadelphia.

I guess as we see that picture tighten up, this looks like the point of impact here. I'm still not seeing the vehicle, but it could be obscured by this indoor playground equipment. You see a police officer on the scene behind that.

Once again, there's just very little information about the circumstances surrounding how it was that a vehicle ran into this. As you can see from the picture, there is, you know, a bit of a parking lot in front of this area. Witnesses on the scene saying at the point of impact they saw a lot of flames and an explosion ultimately.

We're going to stay with this picture as we learn more about what happened here. In a meantime, Philadelphia residents can't even get anywhere near here. The traffic has been rerouted. And as is the case with a lot of these accidents, it'll probably be hours before investigators will know exactly what went wrong here.

We haven't had the chance to talk with any witnesses on the ground who could describe what happened, but at this point three McDonald's workers at the Mount Ephraim, New Jersey, McDonald's killed when a car pierced through a section of the restaurant itself.

As soon as we have more details for you, we'll bring them to you live.

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