By Lori Ehde"It could have been worse," Cary Schroeder kept repeating after his Edward Jones investments office was destroyed by a car last week.At nearly 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 1, a 1999 red Monte Carlo driven by 17-year-old Chessa Ossefoort veered off Main Street, ran over a postal drop box and crashed through the brick wall at the Freeman Avenue intersection.Ellie Oldre, office administrator, works in the front of the building, which was completely demolished."I thank the good Lord I’m still here," she said. "If I had been a little farther south, it would have been a completely different story."The impact sent bricks and glass flying in all directions, and a large shelving unit struck the far wall adjacent to Dr. Bill Preuss’ chiropractic office next door.Kim Arends, office manager for Preuss, was in the Jones office talking to Oldre when car crashed through the wall. Her back was to the front windows, and she was facing Oldre, who was seated behind the desk counter."The only thing I remember is Kim was talking to me, and it was like a football player hit her from the south and sent her north," Oldre said.She said the impact split the L-shaped desk and pushed it back."My chair has wheels, and I kind of moved with my desk," Oldre said. "If I’d been in a stationary chair, I would have been under the desk."Arends said she briefly thought about the people trapped in their offices during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks."That came to mind," she said. "I looked around and wondered how Ellie and I were going to get out of there."She said both she and Oldre were a bit traumatized at first. "I just stood there literally screaming," Arends said. Both women had scrapes and bruises, but they said it would take longer to heal emotionally."You sort of play mind games … all the ‘what-ifs.’ If Kim hadn’t been with me, I might have been at the copy machine where there’s a whole pile of bricks."Arends said she had nightmares that night. "I dreamt that someone was trying to kill me," she said.People tell them they’re lucky, but Oldre disagrees."Luck had nothing to do with it," she said. "We had the good Lord and all his angels with us."Schroeder, an investment representative with Edward Jones, is just glad he’s dealing only with inconveniences of the destroyed building. "We’re fortunate we didn’t have some deaths," he said. "It’s just a crazy, crazy deal."Questions about causeOssefoort, who was not injured in the accident, said it’s been an uncomfortable week as people speculate about the cause of the accident and about her health."I don’t want people to jump to conclusions," she said. "One kid at school even accused me of doing it on purpose. … Someone else said I might be pregnant and that’s why I blacked out."She said she doesn’t remember anything after turning the corner at the stoplights on Highway 75 and Main Street. "Everything went black," she said.Ossefoort said she’s also bothered that people think she may have been distracted by her cell phone, which both Oldre and Arends recall seeing in her hand at the time of the accident."My phone was in my purse in the back seat," Ossefoort said. "Although that was the first thing I grabbed when I came to. I called my mom."Cell phone records have been requested to determine the timing of the call.Relocated across streetSchroeder said he and Oldre have been sharing his office space in the north part of the building, but as of today they’ve temporarily moved operations across the street to the former Luverne Chamber Office.With the front under construction, clients had to access the Edward Jones office through Dr. George McDonald’s optometric clinic. "It wasn’t real convenient," Schroeder said.Further, the noise of hammer on bricks and cement saws rumbling in the background haven’t made for an ideal work environment.So, to escape distractions, Edward Jones will be located at 102 E. Main St. for the next few months. "We’re trying to get the word out to our clients," Schroeder said.The phone number to reach the business will stay the same.Earl Hanson, who owns the building, said he appreciated quick response from Marilyn Bloemendaal and Pam Haakenson at Buffalo Ridge Insurance."They really took me by the hand," he said. "Before I knew it they had a contractor on site."He said Tom Nergaard, Luverne, had been working in Magnolia, but came immediately when Haakenson called. "They just dropped what they were doing and came over," Hanson said.The building has been declared structurally sound and repairable, but it will take time to repair it.Hanson said ballpark estimates at the time of the accident put damages at somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000. That’s not figuring possible damage on the Preuss side of the wall.But, Hanson, too, said he was grateful the outcome wasn’t worse."Buildings can be fixed and replaced, but when you get a loss of life or a personal injury, it’s an entirely different issue," Hanson said.