Heart attack victim crashes into Flat Rock bookstore

More on Saturday's accident at the Old Post Office from the Times-News:

The heart attack [Lloyd T. Baldwin] suffered on his way back to his home on East Pinecrest Drive caused him to black out, cross the northbound lane, sideswipe a telephone pole and crash his 2005 Nissan pickup into the old Flat Rock Post Office, troopers said.

The crash caused the double-decker porch of the historic building to collapse and shattered the front windows of the Book Exchange run by the all-volunteer Ladies Aid Society of Flat Rock Inc.

“Luckily, there was no (oncoming) traffic,” said N.C. Highway Patrol Trooper M.R. Hinnenkamp. “He went off the left shoulder and hit the porch supports and basically took all of them out and the porch fell.”

Volunteer Mary Terrill was reading a magazine and eating lunch at her desk inside the Book Exchange — which had no customers at the time — when “all of a sudden there was a horrendous noise and all this glass started coming toward me.”. . .

Read it all.