Smithville Post Office Building Damaged in Freak Accident Thursday

The Smithville Post Office building and a pickup truck received some damage Thursday morning when a motorist accidentally ran into them.
Smithville Police Lieutenant Steven Leffew, in the accident report, states that 87 year old Robert Eller was in a 1991 Dodge Caravan, backing from a parking space at the Smithville Post Office, when he collided into a 2000 Ford 150 pickup truck, belonging to Tommi J. Eldridge of Smithville, which was parked near Justin Potter Library. Eller’s Caravan then went forward colliding into the glass door at the Post Office.
No one was injured.
Smithville Post Master Mike Lynn recounted for WJLE what occurred.”We were inside working the mail and heard a big loud commotion. We went outside and found that a customer (Eller) who had parked outside the vestibule here, the little 6′ by 6′ opening we have, had backed up out of his parking space, went clean across the street and backed into a pickup truck parked in front of the library and damaged the truck pretty severely. He then pulled it back down in drive, came back across the street, jumped the sidewalk, and ran into the left side of our little vestibule that sticks out there. Fortunately there were no customers or anyone walking in the building at that time or it really could have been devastating. As it turned out no one was injured.”
Lynn estimates the damage to the building at around $2,000. “It knocked one of the doors off the hinges and knocked the frame back about a foot. It didn’t even break any of the glass on our windows so we were all lucky all the way around on that.”
“I called facilities in Atlanta and they sent field maintenance up here to look at it. They took the door off and they’re going to replace that whole front part. I’m going to estimate that it will cost maybe a couple of thousand dollars to get that front fixed back like it was.
As far as Mr. Eller’s van, I’m not sure but I think the front bumper was the only thing damaged on his vehicle as far as the Post Office is concerned. I don’t know exactly what happened to the back end of his vehicle when he went into that other truck in front of the library.”