SUV plows though car wash
BUTLER TWP — A man escaped serious injury Wednesday morning when the sport utility vehicle he was driving struck the side of a building next to the Morgan Car Wash on New Castle Road.
The man, who appeared to be in his 60s or 70s, apparently suffered only a cut on his head.
Butler Township police investigated the crash shortly before 11 a.m. but an accident report was not immediately available.
The man drove out of a bay at the car wash and crashed through the bay door, said Chris Switala, township fire marshal. The vehicle traveled about 50 feet before it slammed into the building that houses six apartments and the Butler Cleaners and Coin Laundromat.
Tenant Tyler Abron was in one of the apartments watching television when he heard and felt the crash. “I heard a big, loud bang,” he said, “and felt the house shake.”
In the front of the building, Heather Cranmer of Mount Chestnut was doing a load of wash at the laundromat. She, too, was shaken — literally.
“The building shook,” she said. “I waited (briefly) and came outside.”
By then, Abron was already out of his apartment.
“I saw the car in the building,” he recalled. “The car was smoking and I hurried up and got (the driver) out and checked him for injuries.”
He saw the bleeding cut on top of the man's head. A Butler Ambulance Service crew tended to the driver.
“(The man) kept saying he didn't know what was happening,” Abron said. “He said he came right through the car wash.”
A Peoples Gas employee shut off gas to the damaged building and a wrecker eventually came and hauled the SUV away.
The building, owned by Scott and Diane Spiece, suffered moderate damage to the exterior block wall, Switala said.
Following an inspection, tenants got the “all clear” to return to their apartments.
Switala said the damage to the car wash, owned by David Morgan, appeared to be confined to the bay door.
