Food truck employees burned when car slammed into Spring-area business

SPRING, Texas (KTRK) -- What should have been a busy, money-making holiday weekend for a business in Spring turned into a wipe-out. The kitchen inside the Main Chick HTX's food truck is closed, and three of their employees are recovering from serious injuries.

The worst injury happened to a woman who had her back to the fryer. The impact threw her into 375-degree grease. She used her arm to lift herself out resulting in severe burns across much of her upper body.

Pictures and surveillance video show how badly that employee is hurt and the damage caused by a driver who crashed into Main Chick HTX.

"Unfortunately, it was a crazy scene to arrive to," owner Ali Nasser said.

Video from a restaurant nearby captured the moment a driver hopped the curb and then crashed into the food truck launching it eight feet backward.

"We were working in there. It was basically a kitchen that someone drove into. The scary part was, it moved with the whole operation going on in there. No one was wearing seatbelts, because it's not a moving vehicle or anything like that," Nasser said.

Nasser just opened the food truck in March. He said he was looking forward to a post-pandemic profit over the holiday weekend. Now, he's just grateful his employees survived to see it.

"It's a small business, so it's harder to compensate for these things, but we don't want to just leave our employees without any help. We want them to know we are there, and Houston is there for them," said Nasser.

As a way to help his employees, Nasser started a GoFundMe that's almost met the $10,000 goal thanks to big-hearted Houstonians who want to see hot chicken coming from this kitchen again soon.

"It was devastating at first. It still is, don't get me wrong, but the way Houston has been supporting us... we're really grateful for it," Nasser said.

All three employees who were hurt have been released from the hospital.

As for the driver who slammed into the vehicle, it's still not known what charges they will face.