Truck rolls into house

Press, 1 June 1984, Page 6

Truck rolls into house

A fully laden concrete truck rolled backwards downhill about 50m before crashing into a Cashmere house yesterday afternoon, demolishing a garage and a spare bedroom. The owners of the five-year-old house in Bengal Drive, Mr Robin and Mrs Janice Bell, were sitting in the lounge with several other people when the truck, owned by Ashby Bros and with a laden weight of 20 tonnes, hit the garage. Mr Bell said that he heard a rumbling as the truck rolled down Nehru Place and across Bengal

Drive, then a “terrific crash” as it hit the garage. The impact was so great that it sheared the mixing bowl from the truck’s chassis. An 18-month-old Honda Civic owned by the Bells was pushed through .the end of the garage and hung at a right angle down a rock garden at the back of the house. Almost ail the contents in the bedroom and the garage that were in the

truck’s path were destroyed. It appeared that the truck had stopped after hitting a thick steel beam at the back of the garage. Traffic officers blocked part of Cashmere Road for several hours because of the possible danger to traffic if the concrete bowl bad rolled free. Some houses downhill from the Bells’ property were also evacuated. “At least it did not hit any flesh and blood,” said

Mr Bell as he surveyed the damage to his property. The accident happened about 12.30 p.m. after the concrete truck was apparently parked unoccupied outside a building site about 50m up the road, in Nehru Place. It had not been determined yesterday what caused the accident. An insurance assessor was at the scene checking the damage to the house, in which the Bells have lived since it was built.

It took several hours for heavy lifting equipment to remove the truck from the house. There was a sound of splintering wood and tearing iron as a tow truck slowly pulled the concrete truck away. A heavy crane then lifted the truck, the rear wheels of which had almost broken off .the chassis, on to a heavy trailer. The concrete mixing bowl was removed later.