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PANORAMA CITY, LOS ANGELES () — A semi-truck carrying vehicles slammed into an apartment building in Panorama City on Tuesday, leaving at least three people hurt and displacing over a dozen residents.
AIR7 flew over the scene, where the truck was seen smashed into the front of the building, causing heavy damage. The car hauler was carrying eight vehicles at the time of the crash.
It happened around 2:30 p.m. in the 8900 block of Van Nuys Boulevard near Osborne Street. It appeared the truck veered off the roadway, over the curb and into the front facade of a 44-unit apartment complex.
At least a dozen cars parked outside of the building were also damaged. It appeared that some slammed into each other as a result of the crash.
The Los Angeles Fire Department said the driver of the semi-truck and a second person were taken to the hospital. They both sustained non-life-threatening injuries. A third person was treated by paramedics at the scene but declined transport.
The driver returned to the scene on Tuesday night after being taken to the hospital. He told Eyewitness News he started feeling nauseous, tried to pull over in the center median, and the next thing he remembered was screams inside the apartment.
The family who lives in the unit directly hit by the semi-truck says they were sitting eating lunch when the truck came crashing through the wall. They say they missed the front-end of the truck by mere inches.
The Red Cross is assisting 13 residents who were displaced from their apartments as a result of the crash, according to LAFD. Video from inside an apartment shows the destruction from the crash. At least one unit was destroyed.
There were people on the sidewalk at the time who were able to get out of the way, according to witnesses.
“There were four cars in front of him. I just saw them out of nowhere stop. I heard him try to stop, and he tried to avoid them, and he hit right there,” witness Ricardo Alvarez said.
“I saw like, I don’t know if I heard the sound before it, like… everything trembled around me. But I just saw it out the window… And then like, I see it, and I’m like, ‘What’s happening?’ And then the whole thing shakes,” said Pamela Sanchez, who lives in the building.
Witnesses say the driver somehow stumbled from the cab after the crash. Meanwhile, Carlos Duran grabbed his family from the rubble as neighbors sprinted from their homes and into the street as the walls shook.
Outside, they saw a much longer path of destruction stretching down both directions along Van Nuys Boulevard.
” I saw all the cars parked on this side. They looked like accordions. Like, he just went boom, boom, boom, boom, boom down the block,” said witness Gladys Stevenson.
Later Tuesday evening, firefighters finally freed the loaded big rig from the building, revealing a full view of a family home in the gaping hole and pushed, crumpled cars. SoCalGas said a gas line was damaged in the crash.
In quick succession, an assembly line of highly-trained fire crews worked to stabilize the building, which was left teetering from the crash. The investigation into the cause of the crash is ongoing.
By Tuesday night, the apartment complex was marked as “restricted use.” Residents in the front buildings won’t be able to return home until crews can make much-needed repairs.
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