Truck crashes into houses on West End Boulevard

A medical issue may have caused a driver to lose consciousness just before he ran off the road and hit two houses Tuesday afternoon on South West End Boulevard, authorities said.

The driver -- a 74-year-old Illinois man whose name was not released because of medical confidentiality rules -- was driving a GMC pickup truck north on West End Boulevard when the vehicle ran off the road and traveled about half a block, sideswiping a house at 140 S. West End Blvd. and knocking down a small tree before stopping when it hit a second house at 124 S. West End Blvd., witnesses reported.

Neither house appeared to be seriously damaged.

"We missed the meter and the gas meter, so those are always a good sign," said Fred Vincel, battalion chief for the Cape Girardeau Fire Department.

Vincel said the driver did not appear to be injured in the accident, but ambulance workers took him away on a stretcher to treat the medical issue that was believed to have led to the crash.

No one else was hurt.

The owner of the brick house at 124 S. West End Blvd., who declined to give his name, said he was not home at the time of the crash, but his girlfriend was inside.

"She's shook up a little bit, but I think she'll be fine," he said.

Kathy Thiele was in her house at 140 S. West End Blvd., baking a cake for her grandson, when the truck scraped the front of her house.

"It's probably flat as a pancake," she said of the cake.

The truck came through Thiele's front flower bed, taking out several lawn ornaments, smashing a pumpkin and damaging part of the siding on the front of the house.

"Thank God he missed the gas line. We all would have been flying high," Thiele said.

Thiele was more concerned about the driver than the damage to her house or landscaping.

"I hope he's all right, that poor guy," she said.

Thiele said the impact shook the house.

"I thought we were having an earthquake," she said.

The crash decapitated Thiele's beloved concrete goose, Abby, which she said was a gift from her husband.

"I wanted her for ages and ages, and my husband brought her home for Christmas one year," she said, observing the now-headless Abby looked appropriate for Halloween.

The extent of the damage to the truck was not clear, but emergency workers backed it away from the house and pulled it out onto the street so Sperling's Garage and Wrecker could load it onto a tow truck and take it away.

epriddy@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

124 S. West End Blvd., Cape Girardeau, Mo.