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A little too much truck plows into Callie's
Niche |
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January 17, 2018 |
By Mike Weland
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| Photo courtesy
Allen Gemmrig |
"At this point, it appears that an elderly man
tried to test drive a vehicle that was a little
too powerful for his abilities and it got away
from him," Bonners Ferry Police Chief Vic Watson
told the Bonners Ferry City Council at Tuesday
night's meeting in describing a crash Monday
morning that took out a corner of a downtown
Bonners Ferry business.
On Wednesday, Watson released his preliminary
report, giving the testimony of both occupants.
"Both men put on their seatbelts and the pickup
was started," he wrote. "What happened next has
two viewpoints but only one outcome."
At 10:51 a.m. January 15, a caller at Larson's
Department Store reported that a vehicle just
ran into the back of a building and hit a tree.
Two minutes late, Chief Watson was on scene,
determined that a pickup had crashed into the
back of the Callie's Niche building at 6429
Bonner Street, that no one was injured seriously
or needing an ambulance.
Moments later he determined that what had
started out just minutes before as a test drive
of a 2007 Ford F-150 at Riverside Auto Center
across the street had not gone according to
plan, neither for Tad McCalmant, 86 Bonners
Ferry, nor for Riverside salesman Ken Yount, who
was showing the vehicle when the crash occurred.
Yount told Watson that the vehicle had been
parked on the Riverside lot facing onto First
Street when McCalmant got in the driver's side
and Yount the passenger. Yount said McCalmant
started the vehicle and was pulling onto the
street when the vehicle suddenly accelerated to
full throttle, throwing him back in his seat,
and within just seconds the vehicle launched
across the street onto the Callie's Niche
property, where it hit a pickup parked behind
the store, pushed the pickup out of the way,
crashed into an upper deck and then into the
back of the Callie's Niche building, taking out
two walls and continuing out through snow in the
backyard, the wall of Callie's Niche rolling up
over the Ford like a garage door opening, until
the pickup struck a tree head on.
Yount said it was only then that he noticed that
McCalmant had the accelerator pressed to the
floor. He noticed McCalmant was dazed and didn't
seem to know what had happened when he was able
to lean over and turn off the ignition.
McCalmant concurred that he didn't remember much
about the crash. But he did remember that once
the pickup started moving forward, he thought it
had a bit too much throttle, so he took his foot
off the gas, he told Watson, and pressed down on
the brake as hard as he could.
"Because of the amount of momentum and velocity
it took to cause the amount of damage
sustained," Watson wrote, "it was clear to me
that Mr. McCalmant pressed down on the as pedal
instead of the brake." |
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