A 48-year-old man drove his car into a wall of the Division of Motor Vehicles on Benson Boulevard on Thursday, then walked inside and renewed his driver's license, Anchorage police said.
Police believe the man was driving while impaired on medication for a serious illness and have since charged him with DWI and suspended his license.
No one was injured in the accident, but the impact dented the building's sleek metal siding, cracked the inside of the wall and startled workers sitting nearby.
"I was probably up on my feet before I even realized I was standing," said Sandy Crisel, who was auditing some paperwork in the hushed accounting department when the crash shook her cubicle around 11:30 a.m. and caused her to fling a staple-puller into the air.
Laura Hoekzema, another accountant, said she was sitting a few cubicles away and thought a bookcase had fallen on her friend and started shouting, asking her whether she was OK.
The accounting department of the DMV usually doesn't see so much excitement, the two women said a few hours later, laughing with some of their co-workers about the crazy way the day had shaped up.
"I'm still finding all my stuff," Crisel said. "I did find my staple puller. It was in the trash."
The part of the building the green Ford Taurus hit was a small windowless storage room where some of the 2 million or so documents the DMV microfilms each year are kept in plastic bins until people like Michelle Steinman can get to them.
Steinman, a microfilm equipment operator, was sitting with hearing protectors on at a loud microfilm camera in a room next to the storage room when the car hit.
"At first I thought it was an earthquake," Steinman said. "I was shaking."
Anchorage police Lt. Nancy Reeder said the driver was going slow enough when he drove over a sidewalk and hit the wall that his airbags didn't deploy.
"I saw the guy back up, get out of his car and walk into the DMV like nothing happened," Steinman said.
No one in the public part of the DMV noticed the accident. The women in the back notified managers of the situation and pointed out the driver, who had since walked inside and taken a number, apologizing to a clerk that he had "tapped" the building, the women said. After seeing the damage, DMV officials called police.
By the time officers arrived, the man had already paid $20 and renewed his license, Lt. Nancy Reeder said. The man failed a balance and coordination test on the spot and was charged with driving under the influence. Reeder said the driver told officers he was on prescription medication for an ongoing medical condition and was very cooperative.
The women and the branch's fiscal manager, Stacey Oates, said the important thing is that no one got seriously hurt -- not them or the driver.
"The man seemed very nice," Crisel said. "He did everything they told him to do."
Daily News reporter Tataboline Brant can be reached at tbrant@adn.com or 257-4321.
