It was pure luck or divine intervention that spared every tenant of a multi-unit apartment building after a truck ran almost all the way through the structure in central New Brunswick on Monday.
The people living in the most badly damaged apartment had just moved out a few days ago, said Upper Miramichi Fire Department Chief Brian Spencer.
The full-sized logging truck was travelling down Route 8 in Ludlow, about 71 kilometres north of Fredericton. At around 1 a.m., the truck swerved to avoid deer and collided with the apartment building.
The single occupant of the other ground-floor apartment was thrown off of his bed but has only minor injuries. There were nine people in the building at the time, including two parents and their two young children.
“The biggest noise I’ve ever heard in my life,” said Andrea Munn, a university student, supply teacher and mother of a two-year-old and one-year-old.
“Underneath of me our bed was shaking, and I just, in true horror, I really started screeching.”
Andrea Munn and her husband Kyler lived on the second floor of the two-storey building. Their furniture is damaged and some glassware is destroyed. Kyler Munn said initially they couldn’t get out of the apartment because the door was stuck, but eventually had help from a neighbour.
“Our living room floor is kind of almost touching the ceiling on one end,” he said.
On Monday afternoon their friends and family were helping them salvage what was left. They do have tenants’ insurance, Andrea Munn said, so they’re not worried and are just glad no one got hurt.
A family says they’re lucky to be alive after a logging truck smashed into an apartment building in Ludlow, N.B.
“We’re all just really grateful that everybody’s OK, that the worst thing that could have happened was a life lost, and that didn’t happen tonight,” she said.
“Stuff is replaceable, but people are not.”
Andrea Munn said her mother-in-law lives down the street and was able to take them in.
Cpl. Keith Gill with the Blackville RCMP said the driver was a 25-year-old man from the area. He told police he was driving the truck to work when he swerved to avoid several deer on the road, Gill said.
Gill said RCMP don’t believe the driver broke any laws.
“All three spoke to the driver of the tractor-trailer, and there was no suspicion at all that it was anything other than multiple deer,” he said. “You’re better off to go through … and just hit them, but it’s human nature to swerve.”
The trailer was not carrying any logs at the time of the crash.
Gill said when he was posted in Alberta he saw a similar crash, where a pickup truck collided with a building, but in that case someone died.
“We’re very lucky that this one didn’t have multiple fatalities,” he said.
Spencer said the Canadian Red Cross has been called to help the tenants, since the building is no longer safe to live in.
“Truthfully, I couldn’t believe it when I looked, when I first saw what I was looking at,” Spencer said. “And then I find out everybody is out, nobody was hurt. I was shocked.”
Andrea Munn said this exact scenario has been a fear of hers, especially since she’s heard stories of something similar happening in the past.
This building has been hit by vehicles from the highway a few times in the past, but never with this much damage, Spencer said.
“I really don’t know [why.] It’s not a bad stretch of road, it’s fairly flat, fairly good going there. But it is close to the highway, so I guess it’s a target,” he said.
Power outages, highway closure
The truck has also caused damage to power lines and fibre optic network lines, causing outages in the area, Spencer said.
N.B. Power spokesperson Marc Belliveau said the truck broke a power pole. He said 12 customers are affected, and power was expected to be restored by noon.
Central New Brunswick Academy was closed Monday because of the outage, said Anglophone West School District on social media.
Belliveau said power has been restored to the school.
Highway 8 was closed by RCMP at around 2:30 a.m. and reopened at around 5:30 a.m.