Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Truck barrels through Stratosphere front entrance

Stratosphere

courtesy

A Ford pickup is shown after crashing through the entrance of the Stratosphere on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014.

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Stratosphere employees clean up the hotel's front entrance after a truck crashed through the casino's glass doors Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014.

In what officials believe is the first such incident at the hotel, a vehicle crashed through the glass doors at the front entrance of the Stratosphere Wednesday night at 8.

Witnesses said the vehicle, a silver Ford F-150 pickup, entered the valet facing Las Vegas Boulevard, veered hard to the right and through the entrance, causing a loud crash and taking out two sets of the glass doors (four total) before braking on the marble floor inside the casino. There were no injuries reported.

Hotel officials provided no identity of the driver, who witnesses said was a younger white man with long hair tied into a ponytail. He was driven away from the Stratosphere in a Metro Police unit.

After crashing through the doors, the driver climbed out of his truck "like nothing happened," as tourist Barbara Sailer, a college student visiting from Nitra, Slovakia, said.

One witness said the driver exited the truck and "just started swinging," scuffling briefly with a group of male hotel guests before being corralled by hotel security. Another witness, declining to be named, said, "He got out of that truck, and he was angry."

Sailer said the sound of the initial impact "was so scary. It sounded like the ceiling falling."

Within an hour of the incident, Stratosphere GM Paul Hobson was on property, and the truck was being hauled away on a flatbed and the mess nearly cleaned up. The repair work is expected to be completed by Thursday afternoon.

Hotel guests at the bar suggested that the entire incident was sparked by tonight's full moon.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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