‘It was so scary’: Pickup truck plows into house, trapping baby
Impairment eyed after driver leaves scene
VANCOUVER • Satinder Manj and his wife, Jaswinder, were drifting off to sleep in their Surrey, B.C., home on Wednesday night when they were jolted awake by a loud bang.
Satinder said he thought the air-conditioning unit had fallen from their secondfloor bedroom window and smashed on the ground, but then he heard their downstairs tenant screaming that she thought her ceiling had collapsed.
Satinder and Jaswinder ran outside to find that a pickup truck was embedded in the back of their house, below their bedroom window.
Their tenant, who has lived in the unit for two years with her husband and two children, was yelling about her four-monthold baby girl, who had been asleep in the bedroom where the truck had crashed. Her husband and other child were not home at the time.
“She was totally shocked because of the baby in there,” said Satinder.
He said they were unable to reach the baby because the truck was quite far through the wall. Firefighters had to cut a hole through the garage and an adjacent bathroom to access the bedroom.
Satinder said the baby had been thrown from her bed.
“The car stopped just four inches from the head of the baby,” he said. The girl remains in B.C. Children’s Hospital in stable condition.
On Thursday morning, Jaswinder was still too shaken up to talk about the incident.
“Oh my god, it is hard to explain,” she said. “It was so scary.”
Neighbour Kuljinder Toor was inside his basement suite when he heard a sound like something had fallen from a great height. He and another person who lives in the house went next door to see what had happened.
Toor said he heard a baby crying and saw a woman who was crying for help.
“We tried to go under, but there was a lot of trash and everything under the truck, so we cannot reach, so we went back. There was no space to go inside,” Toor said.
A few minutes later, he said, firefighters and paramedics arrived.
Toor said the truck had to have been travelling 60 to 70 kilometres per hour when it crashed through a fence and into the house.
Satinder said there was no one in the truck when he arrived, but Toor said he saw two men who he says smelled of alcohol in the alley after the crash. The men went into a house across the alley, and police later went to the home and arrested one man.
According to Surrey RCMP, a 57-year-old man they believe was the driver was arrested shortly after the incident, but later released late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning pending further investigation.
Police crash specialists are investigating what could have contributed to the crash, including impairment, driver error or mechanical problem.
Raveen Gounder, a director for Ace Electric, which owned the truck, confirmed Thursday that the driver is an employee of the Surrey company.
“I am not really aware of what happened ... I am just hearing about it now,” Gounder said early Thursday morning. “It’s not good.”
A young man who answered the door at the house across the alley from the crash scene said he was in bed and didn’t hear or see anything.
His mother confirmed that the truck had crashed after leaving their house.
“It went from here, but I didn’t see anything,” she said.
Satinder said his family — he lives in the home with his wife and his parents — and their tenants will not be able to return to their house until an engineer decides it is safe and repairs are made.
He said the truck could not be removed immediately because it is supporting part of the second floor.
“There is a chance the structure could fall down,” he said.
Still, Satinder said, things could have been worse.