Auburn Valley Barber Shop is back in business after car wreck

Weeks after an elderly Auburn woman suffered a stroke in her Ford Aerostar van and plowed through its plate glass windows, Auburn Valley Barber Shop west of the Auburn Justice Center remains boarded up.

This week the stylists picked up their scissors and clippers and got back to work.

“We’re open here,” Artemas Malone said Tuesday as he trimmed Patrick Emmons, a regular.

“Here” for now and at least the next month is a construction trailer behind the banged-up, boarded-up barbershop.

"This is the second day we've been open in this trailer, and things have been slow," Malone said. "But today is better than yesterday. People look at what's going on in front, and they see this construction trailer out back, and they don't know the business is open in it."

Being the loyal customer that he is, Emmons waited for the shop to reopen.

"I have been a customer for about two years. My hair got a little longer, and I was going to get it cut a couple weeks ago, but I waited to get my haircut here. I knew they were open, and I had to show my support," Emmons said.

"It's a good old stylist barbershop, the way barbershops are supposed to be," Emmons added.

The van first struck an 18-year-old man waiting on the sidewalk for a bus east of the Auburn Justice Center in the 400 block of East Main Street. Auburn Regional Medical Center treated the man for non-life threatening injuries.

From there the van continued west, hit a light pole, clipped the bumper on a second vehicle and careened down the street. It struck some signs and smashed into the shop, spraying the stylists and customers with debris.

For Malone, it as a close shave.

"I was giving a guy one of those military flattops, and I heard a bunch of noise coming down the street, and when I heard the noise I'm looking around and I don't see anything so I turned back around," Malone recalled. "When I looked again, I'm looking at this van coming straight through the window at me and my client. Scared the living daylights out of me. I tried to get out the way, but a big old brick in the forehead knocked me down. Shook me up pretty bad."

"I had a chance to move out of the way, but everything came at me like a wave," said stylist Randy Simon.

The driver's 60-something husband, who was a passenger, was transported to ARMC with non-life threatening injuries. Their granddaughter was in the van and unhurt.

"… We've seen a drop off in business because of the trailer, but our message is that we're still here," Simon said.

Auburn Valley Barber Shop is owned by Brian and LaDele Kilcup.

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