ANAHEIM, Calif. — One person was killed and two others injured after the driver of a loaded dump truck lost control following an interstate crash and careened through a cinder block wall and nearby apartment buildings.
There's yellow tape blocking off the 57 on ramp toward Santa Ana, where the truck may have left the road. Looks like it traveled 30-60 feet before going through the wall of the complexes parking area then went into the back of one unit. @ocregister
— Eric Anthony Licas (@EricLicas) August 25, 2021
According to the California Highway Patrol, the initial three-vehicle crash occurred just before 1 p.m. Tuesday at Lincoln Avenue off-ramp of Interstate 57 in Anaheim.
The truck struck the side of a Honda Civic stopped at the off-ramp’s red light, before barreling through the intersection and colliding with a Mercedes-Benz C240, KTLA reported.
According to the TV station, the force of the second impact knocked the dump truck into the cinder block wall, several parked cars and through one apartment building before crashing into a second.
The truck came to its final stop inside the bedroom of apartment tenant Patricia Johnson, who was not home at the time of the crash, but investigators found the body of Rory Antoine, 61, when they extracted the vehicle, KTLA reported.
“That poor gentleman that was in that first or second building, minding his business. It’s unfortunate,” CHP Officer Florentino Olivera told the news outlet.
The driver, identified as 54-year-old Rafael Pacheco, suffered moderate injuries and was transported to an area medical center for treatment, KTLA reported.
According to the CHP, Antoine was in his bed when the truck plowed through the apartment building, pushing him along the vehicle’s grill and into the other building, The Ocean County Register reported.
Vanessa Calderon, who lives about 100 feet from the destroyed apartment, told the newspaper that she was in her kitchen, heard a boom, went outside and “everything was white.”
@ocregister pic.twitter.com/gbNPCHiRQw
— Eric Anthony Licas (@EricLicas) August 25, 2021
“We thought there had been an explosion, but when the dust cleared there was that truck in the middle of the yard,” Calderon told the Register.
Meanwhile, an unidentified 69-year-old man driving the second car that Pacheco’s truck struck was also treated at an area hospital for minor injuries, according to the CHP.
No arrest warrants or citations related to the string of crashes have been issued, and the cause of the calamity remains under investigation, the Register reported.
Officer Olivera said the dump truck was carrying a heavy load, so was traveling with a lot of momentum at the time. It's unclear if there was anything mechanically wrong with it at the time, too early to say, Oliver said. @ocregister
— Eric Anthony Licas (@EricLicas) August 25, 2021
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