Crash damages Restmore Inn

There was an explosion a few miles southeast of Hill City Dec. 12, but not the kind one would typically expect. 

Thanks to the security cameras installed three weeks prior at the Restmore Inn, Calvin and Vivian Griswold captured the accident that occurred at their business and home. Vivian was upstairs at the time, and Calvin had just walked out of their house located on the upper story of their business. Ten seconds later at 12:42 p.m. there was a loud “explosion” according to Vivian. 

A car coming northwest on Hwy. 16 drifted into the curb on the right side, overcorrected, crossed a lane of oncoming traffic and hit the curb near one of the Griswold’s cabins. 

Instead of stopping there the car went airborne, leaving only two small tire treads on the lawn. The car flew straight “like a rocket,” said Vivian, never veering to the right or the left. It went over the cabin’s deck, across the lawn and between several trees. Vivian later measured the distance, and it was approximately 103 feet. 

“It doesn’t look like the front end ever hit the ground,” said Calvin. 

The car stopped only after it crashed through the Restmore Inn office, through part of a motel room and finally hit the laundry room wall, which is load-bearing. The entire car went inside the building. 

Calvin had his back to the office when the car collided with it and thought his house had exploded. He turned around just in time to see the roof of the office lift up a foot “like a garbage can lid” from the compressed air forced upward.

At the time a shovel had been leaning against the rim of the roof on the upper level of the structure. When the roof went up, the shovel fell back and was pinned between the wall and the roof, hanging in mid-air by the handle. The Griswold children called this “a flying shovel.” 

Vivian came outside after she heard the “explosion,” and there was smoke and dust everywhere. 

“It looked like a bomb,” she said. 

At first, Vivian was afraid something had happened to Calvin, and Calvin was afraid something had happened to Vivian. They were both thankful everyone was OK. 

When investigating what happened, Calvin said, “I come around the corner, and I see the car with the back end, and I thought, ‘Wow, how’d that get in here?’” 

Initially, he thought the car might have come through the front of the building and spun around, but the front appeared relatively fine. 

They asked the driver if she was OK, got the door open and the driver walked out by herself. She had a minor cut on her hand, and the Griswolds suspected she might have had a mild concussion from the airbag based on the way she talked at first. They estimated the woman was between late 30s and 40s, and she had a dog with her in the car. 

Even after the impact, the car engine was running smoothly, but they turned it off to avoid adding oil, gas or fire to the wreckage. 

The driver called her mom, an ambulance was called and the sheriff’s office was called to come do a report. Vivian was told that the driver was not drunk. Instead, something medical had caused the accident. 

Later a tow truck lifted the car out. The front was smashed with a chunk of concrete lodged in the windshield and wood was stuck on the car, but the inside was relatively undamaged except for the airbag. 

While looking at the hole in the building, Calvin said, “We never thought someone would come through here in a car.” 

If anyone had been in the office, they would have died, Calvin said. If anyone had been in the motel room next door, they could have died from the sudden compaction of the room and the concrete that fell across the bed. And if Calvin had not taken down four trees to widen out that space last year, the driver could have collided with the trees and potentially died. 

Vivian could not sleep the next night. She said it was hard to know where to start repairing things, and they had just remodeled the room a few years ago. 

In the office, the custom built check-in desk was destroyed along with a computer, printer, credit card machine, treadmill, kayaks, advertising materials and decorations collected during their travels. 

The support beam in the middle fell so the roof was sagging and needed to be propped up. Some electrical wiring and heating were damaged as well. Also, when the roof went up, Vivian said a roll of paper towels flew out of the box from the linen and supplies room behind the office from the basement to the outside like a bullet. 

In the motel room, the furniture was compacted against the far wall. Vivian had to clear some pieces out of the way so she could go inside. Along with this, the wall between the office and laundry room was cracked to the bathroom of the motel room. 

The Griswolds will not know the extent of what was destroyed until they start cleaning it up. 

Once insurance procedures were taken care of, they planned to clear everything out into dump trailers, figure out the extent of the damage and demolish parts. Until that can occur, they plan to support the roof and board off the hole. 

Calvin said he usually has a list of work to do inside during the winter. This year he did not have any inside plans, but he said, “I got all I need now.” 

The Griswolds expect they will have to close the Restmore Inn for a little while to make the repairs. It was estimated that these repairs will cost over $100,000.