Logging truck crashes into apartment building, no one seriously injured

It was pure luck or divine intervention that spared every tenant of a multi-unit apartment building after a truck ran almost all the way through the building in central New Brunswick on Monday.

The people living in the Ludlow apartment most badly damaged had just moved out a few days ago, said Upper Miramichi Fire Department Chief Brian Spencer.

The single occupant of the other ground-floor apartment was thrown off of his bed but has only minor injuries. There were nine people in the building at the time. 

"Truthfully, I couldn't believe it when I looked, when I first saw what I was looking at," Spencer said. "And then I find out everybody is out, nobody was hurt. I was shocked."

The full-sized logging truck was travelling down Route 8 in Ludlow, about 71 kilometres north of Fredericton. At around 1 a.m., the truck left the road and collided with the apartment building, Spencer said.

Cpl. Keith Gill with the Blackville RCMP said the driver was a 25-year-old man from the area. He told police he was driving the truck to work when he swerved to avoid several deer on the road, Gill said.

Gill said RCMP don't believe the driver broke any laws.

"All three spoke to the driver of the tractor-trailer and there was no suspicion at all that it was anything other than multiple deer," he said. "You're better off to go through with them and just hit them, but it's human nature to swerve."

The trailer was not carrying any logs at the time of the crash.

Gill said when he was posted in Alberta he saw a similar crash, where a pickup truck collided with a building, but in that case, someone died.

"We're very lucky that this one didn't have multiple fatalities," he said.

Spencer said the Canadian Red Cross has been called to help the tenants, since the building is no longer safe to live in.

This building has been hit by vehicles off of the highway a few times in the past, but never with this much damage, Spencer said.

"I really don't know [why.] It's not a bad stretch of road, it's fairly flat, fairly good going there. But it is close to the highway, so I guess it's a target," he said.