BURIEN, Wash. — Shortly after he got out of surgery to place pins in a badly broken left leg, 21-year-old Harley Hatch of Burien told KIRO 7 he remembers helping a customer at the jewelry counter in the Burien Ross store Monday night at 9:15 p.m. and in the next blink of an eye, a van exploded through the glass, right through the counter where he was working.
“It didn’t feel real, honestly,” Hatch said. “All of a sudden it’s plowing through the front of the store, hits me, through the counter and I’m conscious through it all. I felt it pushing me.”
Hatch remembers being plowed by the van's bumper under a crush of mangled debris and shattered glass. "I definitely felt the driver accelerate after making contact with the counter," he said.
When the van finally stopped, Hatch says he was pinned in front of the van with his leg bent behind him, and he saw a critically injured 2-year-old boy who was in a stroller -- trapped in debris next to him.
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“I seriously hope he’s all right, that’s all that matters,” he said, adding that two of his Ross co-workers were also injured in the crash.
"I think I made it out pretty good," he said. "I'm more concerned about everyone else's health."
Hatch says he wishes he could have helped others in his store, but he relied on first responders to pull him free. “Time definitely felt like it slowed down... was stuck there for an eternity,” he said. “I was just trying my best not to freak out or panic.”
Hatch says he saw the couple in the van, including the 51-year-old male suspect driver and his 48-year-old female accomplice. Hatch says the woman tried to shoplift in the store, but could not carry the items through a closed checkout stand. He says she was seen getting into the van outside the doors, as if to get away. He says the couple said nothing after the crash.
“As far as I could tell there was no remorse or anything for it,” he said. "They didn’t get out, they didn’t try to check on anyone. It felt if anything, like they kept trying to pull forward more.''
But the fact he survived astounds him. “It’s obviously not my time to die,” he said. “With how I was pinned, the glass all around me, and only a broken leg and some stitches? It’s not bad.”
And he says he now believes in miracles. “In every way, it should have ended me,” he said. “There’s no reason I should have gotten this lucky.”
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