Car crumbles Center duplex
CENTER TWP — It was a terrifying wake-up call this morning for two women sleeping in a duplex on Arthur Drive.
“All of a sudden there was a big explosion,” said tenant Barbara Kroh. “I thought the house was on fire. It was total destruction.”
It would take several minutes before Kroh and her niece, Melody Cunningham, who is visiting from Maryland, would learn what happened about 4:20 a.m.
A runaway car, apparently northbound on Route 308, left the road and traveled about 400 feet downhill through several yards before slamming into the brick apartment. The car ended up a pile of crumpled and twisted wreckage below the apartment.
The driver, 49-year-old Michael E. Mazurek of Summit Township, was critically injured. He was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital.
State police are investigating what caused Mazurek to lose control of his car.
“It was a lot to take in,” said Chief Nathan Wulff of the Unionville Volunteer Fire Department. “We were initially dispatched for a structure fire, maybe a natural gas explosion. But then we discovered it was a vehicle accident.
“It was a big transition.”
The Chrysler sedan left Route 308 around Marvel Road and careened through a series of backyards and hit a tree. The car continued down a steep hillside, leaving a trail of tire tracks and gouges in the dew-softened turf.
“The car was bunny hopping most of the way,” Wulff said.
The vehicle eventually appeared to veer sideways and became airborne, hitting Kroh's apartment and taking out an upstairs portion of the two-floor structure.
The vehicle's first impact happened to be the bedroom where Cunningham was sleeping. It nearly scared the life out of her, she admitted.
“I heard it. I thought it was an explosion. I looked over and part of the wall was gone,” Cunningham said. “I could feel the cold air on me.”
Still in a sleep daze, she was frantic.
“I was screaming, 'What happened? What happened? What's going on?'” she remembered.
In the adjacent bedroom, Kroh was just as panic-stricken.“I'm screaming. She's screaming,” Kroh said. “We didn't know what happened. We only thought the house had exploded. Maybe the gas. Maybe the hot water tank.“All that noise — it was unbelievable.”Startled and shaken, Cunningham got out of bed.“I stepped on a brick,” she said.The brick was one of several that tumbled into her bedroom from the crushed wall.Her nightgown and hair were covered in plaster loosened from the caved in wall and ceiling in the wreck.“I tried to turn the ceiling light on,” she recalled, “but it wouldn't work. There was debris all over the bed.”Kroh jumped out of bed and rushed to find her niece.“I came out running toward the living room and I'm tripping over debris,” she said. “Then I look in the kitchen and part of it's gone. “I'm thinking, 'My God. I don't know what happened.'”She saw Cunningham was up and safe. Kroh grabbed a portable telephone and called 911 as she and her niece left the apartment.As she spoke to the dispatcher, she was having a difficult time finding the words and keeping calm.“I told her (the dispatcher): 'Part of my house exploded,' Kroh said. “I smell gas.'”“(The dispatcher) asked, 'Is there a fire?' I said I don't see a fire but it's smoking.'”That smoke, it turned out, was the lingering cloud of dust and plaster from the impact of the car into the duplex.The gas she and Cunningham smelled was from the car.“It was leaking fuel,” Wulff said of the wrecked vehicle.
Dumbfounded by the chaos and confusion, the women finally got an idea of what happened.“We still didn't know there was a car out there until the fire department told us,” Cunningham said. “We looked down and saw (the driver) was on a stretcher, strapped in.”Fire crews set up a landing zone at the Clearview Mall, less than a mile away, where a medical helicopter landed before flying Mazurek to Allegheny General Hospital.Wulff did not know what caused the accident. He wondered if Mazurek possibly suffered a medical condition.A senior care provider in Brandywine in southern Maryland, Cunningham, arrived Friday for a visit with her aunt. She had planned to drive home this morning. She had set her alarm for 7 a.m. If all went well, she was to leave about 8 a.m.Those plans changed abruptly. But she remained surprisingly upbeat.“I never feel lucky. I feel fortunate,” Cunningham said. “I feel blessed to have gotten through something like this.”Kroh, too, was left to wonder if divine intervention was at play.“God was looking after (Cunningham),” Kroh said. “If she was on the other side of the bed, she would have been crushed.”Kroh plans to stay with her daughter in Meridian for a while. Cunningham was to stay there, too, for at least another day.Despite what happened and what could have happened, Cunningham found some humor amid the rubble.“I just went though the house yesterday, thinking how cute it was,” she said, “and taking pictures of it to send to my daughter.”
