Derek Severns was not interested in the irony of a truck colliding with the collision center he manages.
Severns was more concerned with making sure his employees were all right.
“Amazingly, no one inside was injured,” said Severns, manager at Bowser Collision Center on Route 22 in Murrysville, where a water truck crashed through the front of the building Friday afternoon.
Emergency crews and police were called to the auto body shop shortly before 3 p.m. Friday.
Murrysville Medic One officials said the truck’s driver was injured and taken to a hospital by ambulance.
Severns said the truck, which was not coming to the center for body work, crashed through an empty conference room inside the collision center, which is situated between two offices.
“It almost seemed fake when it happened,” Severns said. “You certainly never expect something like a truck crashing through the wall to happen. We heard a loud crash and then everything started happening.”
The truck came to rest with roughly the front 30 feet inside the building.
Severns said Bowser staff will work with emergency officials to determine the structural soundness of the building. The crash created a hole that took out first- and second-story windows and brought wiring from inside the building down onto the truck.
“We’ll set up temporary offices and we’re hoping to have our telephones and computers up and running by Monday at our location on Route 286 in Plum,” Severns said.
The closure of an eastbound lane on Route 22 had afternoon traffic backed up on the highway as well as the eastbound side of Old William Penn Highway.
Patrick Varine is a TribLive reporter covering Delmont, Export and Murrysville. He is a Western Pennsylvania native and joined the Trib in 2010 after working as a reporter and editor with the former Dover Post Co. in Delaware. He can be reached at pvarine@triblive.com.