Semi crashes into supermarket in Hermitage, Mo.

The Missouri Highway Patrol is working a crash involving a semi truck in into a supermarket in Hermitage, Mo.

Troopers responded to the crash in the noon-hour Thursday. They tell us the semi ran off U.S. 54 traveling east and hit the supermarket.

Sid Kingston has been the manager of Five Star Supermarket in Hermitage for more than 30 years.

Thursday Kingston watched his store come crashing down when a semi truck driver lost control and smashed through a wall and stopped in the middle of the market.

"All of the sudden it just sounded like a bomb went off," he said.

The truck crashed into six aisles of the store. The crash partially collapsed the roof. Kingston said shelves and debris fell on top of him when the truck rammed through the wall.

"It wasn't until I walked around the corner and I see this semi in my store and then there was a lady in the deli that was trapped up against the case and so I went up there and we worked to get her loose," he said.

Five people inside the Supermarket suffered injuries. The driver complained of heart difficulties, which may have caused the crash.

"I stopped and said 'hey are you okay?," Kingston said about the driver of the truck. " He was like 'yeah' and he said 'I think I passed out."

One of the owners of the family-owned supermarket said the truck hit just moments before their lunch rush.

"A lot of people could have been in the store because right around the noon hour we got a lot of people standing back their by the deli waiting to be served," said co-owner Matt Carney.

The semi was full of fireworks. Because of that, structural engineers had to determine the proper way to remove the semi. It was carefully backed out of the rubble.

The semi also hit a truck in the parking lot. Kingston said he is still in disbelief that this could happen to his own workplace.

"The fact that I was standing within six or eight feet of the truck coming through there and that nobody else was hurt," he said. "It's just mind blowing."