Downey medical office damaged in pickup truck crash

DOWNEY - A man at the wheel of a pickup truck mistakenly stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake and crashed into a medical office building in a shopping plaza in Downey today, police said.

The crash happened in the 7800 block of Imperial Highway, near Smallwood Avenue, around 12:30 a.m., a Downey police sergeant said.

The older-model Ford pickup was moving slowly and the driver was not injured, but the building was damaged, he said.

The driver hit the gas pedal instead of the brake, a police officer told a news photographer at the scene.

The truck damaged but barely penetrated the front wall of the St. Francis Medical Center Clinic, the photographer reported. A city inspector was called out to check the building's structural integrity.

A Domino's pizza store was the only business open in the shopping plaza at the time of the crash.