Victim describes crash into plasma center

25-year-old says episode could have been prevented

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The woman accused of running her car into a blood plasma center last weekend because it wouldn't let her donate remains in jail, and a victim spoke out Thursday about what happened.

"It sounded like a freight train went through the building, and it was extremely loud and everyone was screaming about 'the bookshelves are falling, the bookshelves are falling,'" said 25-year-old Raymond Jackson.

He said he's unable to work as a forklift operator because part of the ceiling collapsed on him.

Police said 35-year-old Pamela Miller (pictured below) drove her car 40 feet into the DCI Biologicals building on Blanding Boulevard on the Westside, injuring as many as 12 people.

Jacksonville Sheriff's Office booking photo of Pamela Miller

The business was open Thursday and there was an armed security guard near the door. Witnesses said they didn't use to have security before, and he's there now because of what happened.

Jackson, a Marine Corps veteran, said he's still shaken up.

"It was ridiculous," he said. "It looks like a bomb went off in there -- how far the car got pushed in there, you know."

Jackson said he was at DCI Biologicals, about to donate plasma for the first time, and was in the back when he heard a loud crash and then screams. He saw people on the floor and bloody, and he said part of the ceiling then collapsed on him.

"She was hunched over in like a fetal position, and that is when I saw her and something fell, and that's when it hit me," Jackson said. "And I turned around and I went out, and I grabbed the two I was with and I told them to come on."

Jackson's wife is OK, but he had to go to a hospital afterward with a clavicle injury.

The plasma center is in the same strip mall as the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office's Westside substation. In fact, there's just one business in between the two.

"Everything that we have seen so far, there was no attempt to call the police, and the substation is in very close proximity," said Jackson's attorney, John Phillips.

Phillips said the staff at DCI Biologicals should have called police after Miller threatened to harm people inside because they wouldn't let her donate plasma. Witnesses said she made a scene minutes before crashing her car into the business.

"Anytime someone goes on to the premises, much less a business, and makes a threat to everybody, and this woman said something to the extent of, 'I'm going to kill everybody,' that business has an obligation to call the cops, to evacuate, to make people safe," Phillips said. "They have to take every threat seriously."

Jackson agrees, saying the whole thing could have been prevented.

The security guard at DCI Biologicals said the manager respectfully declined to comment, and that no one from the company was going to comment about what happened.

A message left at the company's corporate office Thursday was not returned.

Witnesses said a man who worked at the cellphone store next door ran into DCI Biologicals, reached into Miller's car and grabbed the keys so she couldn't drive it anymore.

Miller has been charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and criminal mischief. She remains at the Duval County Pre-Trial Detention Facility.