‘Heroic’ waitress rushes to save boy as car barrels into Texas restaurant, owner says

A car barreled through an Italian restaurant in Texas during the dinner rush, and the actions of one of its waitresses helped save a boy from being struck.

The crash happened around 5 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 10, at Gino’s Italian Restaurant in Round Rock, police said. Two people were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries and six others had minor injuries.

One waitress, identified in a GoFundMe as Jennifer Degallado, suffered a broken leg.

“Jennifer was casually talking with a family that just got seated at her table serving them their drink order one minute, and an instant later she was pushing their young child out of harms way, as a car came crashing through the building,” Degallado’s sister said in the GoFundMe.

She described her sister’s actions as “heroic.”

Gina Minardi, the co-owner of the restaurant, said the boy would have been hit head-on if it weren’t for the waitress.

“Like seriously I could just cry because it was so scary on how fast it happened, and it could have been so horrible, even worse,” he told KTBC.

The crash appears to be accidental, and no charges have been filed, police told KEYE.

Gino’s reopened on Monday, according to a Facebook post. Degallado will be unable to work “for a long time” due to her injuries, the restaurant said.

Round Rock is about 20 miles north of Austin.

This story was originally published December 15, 2022 at 12:42 PM with the headline "‘Heroic’ waitress rushes to save boy as car barrels into Texas restaurant, owner says."