As crews worked inside Cascade Village to repair an apartment unit damaged last week by a suspected DUI driver who crashed his truck through the building, Ariel Montano recounted the terrifying experience.
Montano lives in the apartment above the one that was badly damaged in the collision that happened just before 10 a.m. Friday, Feb. 20 on the south side of Shasta Dam Boulevard.
“It felt like my apartment jolted,” Montano said on Monday, Feb. 23 as she came to check on the repairs being done. She has two young children, but they were not home at the time of the collision.
Montano remembers her neighbor, who lives below her, was outside with her child when the truck crashed through her neighbor’s unit. Montano said she heard her neighbor screaming.
“She had thought her roof collapsed,” Montano said. “We went around the building and saw that someone had drove in through the building.”
Neither Montano nor her neighbor and child were injured.
The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office in a news release identified the driver of the truck as Joshua Benson, 46, of Shasta Lake.
Benson was extricated from his truck and taken to the hospital. He was later cited at the hospital for suspicion of DUI, the sheriff’s office said.
The sheriff’s office said they are still investigating the collision before they forward the case to the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office.
While Montano’s apartment was not damaged, she said the force of the collision damaged her plumbing, so she has been staying in a hotel waiting for repairs to be made. She was hopeful of returning to her apartment later Monday.
Pat Rossiter of K2 Development said the truck, which was towing a trailer, went all the way through the vacant commercial unit, crashed through the drywall before coming to rest inside the ground-floor apartment. They were working to fix the unit and have the displaced resident back home later this week, he said.
Cascade Village is a mixed-use development that opened last fall. The complex is on both sides of Shasta Dam Boulevard and features ground-floor commercial spaces and apartments above.
David Benda covers business, development and anything else that comes up for the USA TODAY Network in Redding. He also writes the weekly “Buzz on the Street” column.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Displaced resident recalls suspected DUI crash that damaged apartment
Reporting by David Benda, Redding Record Searchlight / Redding Record Searchlight
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