Ottawa Citizen

‘The entire truck was inside the house’

- JAKE EDMISTON

Const. Jeff Wilson was driving near Cambridge, N.S. at about 1 p.m. Wednesday when a call came across his radio: A tractor trailer was inside a house.

“Your mind races,” said Wilson, a school safety resource officer with the RCMP in Kings County.

He was on his way to a high school in Cambridge, a short drive from the crash.

Wilson figured he could be at the scene in 10 minutes, probably making him one of the first responders.

“There’s so many things to think about. How many people are in the truck? How many people are in the house?”

The house and the truck were just a few metres off Highway 1, which runs through the heart of Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley.

When Wilson pulled up, the truck’s long trailer was sticking out of the two-storey house.

The front end had crashed all the way through to the basement.

“The entire truck was inside the house,” Wilson said. “I’ve been doing this job for 16 years now, and I have seen vehicles collide with houses before, but not with the impact that I saw today.”

Inside the house, the driver was trapped in his cab. First responders tried to pry him free, some using chainsaws, Wilson said. Luckily, no one else was inside the home.

Before long, crowds were showing up on the side of Highway 1, including some of the high school students on lunch from just down the road — the same kids Wilson was supposed to be visiting.

Police set up a barrier, snarling traffic on the highway and cordoning the spectators on a grade in a hill, perfect for watching the driver — freed after an hour — walk by himself into an ambulance with non-life-threatenin­g injuries.

Wilson counted at least 100 people watching as the massive tow truck got to work pulling the truck loose.

“We were hearing all sorts of stories,” said Ken Roscoe, who owns the apartment complex across the road from the grey house. “Some of the tenants heard the big noise and they’d run out.”

Later Wednesday, RCMP released a statement explaining how the crash happened. “The driver of the tractor trailer was attempting to avoid a collision with another vehicle when he lost control, left the road, and struck the house.”

Cpl. Jennifer Clarke confirmed that the truck and the other vehicle were travelling in the same direction when the truck swerved.

Kevin Rafuse, a dispatcher with Twin Mountain Constructi­on Ltd., which operates the truck, deferred questions to the RCMP.

Twin Mountain, he said, was focused on supporting the truck driver and the residents of the house, he said, adding that the company quickly boarded up the hole in the house once the truck was removed.

“All we’re concerned about now is both the families and that’s it.”

 ?? NOVA SCOTIA RCMP ?? A tractor-trailer sits partly inside a house near Cambridge, N.S., after a collision on Wednesday. No one was inside the home at the time.
NOVA SCOTIA RCMP A tractor-trailer sits partly inside a house near Cambridge, N.S., after a collision on Wednesday. No one was inside the home at the time.

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