MCKEESPORT, Pa. — Dawn Weichler is an animal control officer and the owner of Sable Kennel along 5th Avenue in McKeesport. She says she was inside on Tuesday just after 3 o’clock when a huge tractor-trailer lost control and crashed, leaving a path of destruction behind.
Dawn Weichier said, “We heard this loud crushing noise but we kind of attributed it to the train, which is three feet away from the building in the back.”
Moments later, she went outside and discovered that noise wasn’t from the train.
Weichier continued, “I walked out and I looked back and I saw smoke and I said, ‘We have a truck in the building.’”
She says the driver was stuck inside.
“My neighbor over here at this business had seen it happen and he came down. He was using bricks to break open the window on the semi and they got the driver out safely. He had no injuries to our knowledge,” Weichier added.
Weichier says her concern shifted when she wasn’t sure where one of the dogs and its walker were.
She said, “One of our volunteers was out here walking a dog. He was walking ravioli and we’re like, where’s Tim and we started yelling for him could not find him.”
Fortunately, the two had just walked back inside right before the truck hit and they weren’t hurt. None of the 29 dogs in the kennel were hurt, but their play area was destroyed.
“Those dogs like to get off leash, they love to run and we can’t use that now. So they have to rely on my volunteers coming in and they take them for walks,” she said.
Weichier says she anticipates getting the play area back up and running in the next two weeks and she says she plans to talk to state representatives about the potential of getting barriers put in here so that this does not happen again.
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