Imagine you’re standing in a General Motors dealership, ogling the brand new Chevrolets and Buicks. Suddenly there’s a CRASH! Two Cadillac crossovers smash through a window and stop, dangling just above the dealership showroom.

It happened in Sherbrooke, Quebec, at Thibault Chevrolet Cadillac Buick and GMC. This Cadillac dealership features a glass tower visible from the street, showcasing multiple cars like a vertical showroom. Employees were operating the tower’s lift–presumably to shuffle inventory–when the elevator gave out.

“What broke was a gear in the winch motor,” explained owner Christian Thibault. That tiny failure sent two Cadillac XT4s plummeting toward the showroom below. But they didn’t make it all the way down.

The SUVs came to a horrifying stop halfway through the glass. The platform had collapsed inward, causing the vehicles to lurch toward the dealership floor. Structural beams bent under their weight, holding on—but just barely.

How do you extract a new Cadillac hanging above a dealership showroom?

Fire crews rushed to the scene. “Since the structure had shifted, we wanted to avoid causing further damage to the building,” said fire operations chief Jean-Marc Pizzo. The glass curtain wall was under pressure, and engineers stood by in case the rest came crashing down.

The rescue team smashed through the glass wall. “We managed to break it open and then drop the white car inside the store and then remove it,” Pizzo explained. Each move was deliberate—slow enough to avoid bringing the whole tower down. An engineer stood by, to warn the fire fighters if the platform or building were about to give way.

Miraculously, no one was injured. Pizzo confirmed that employees had been operating the elevator when the tower failed. If the collapse had happened seconds later, this story could’ve ended much worse.

A safety inspector was dispatched to the Cadillac dealership to investigate what went wrong and whether protocols were followed. The XT4s, made in GM’s Kansas City factory, were smashed up badly. But somehow, the showroom stayed intact. Who knew the most dangerous part of buying a Cadillac was walking into the dealership?