AUBURN, Mass. (WHDH) — An Auburn neighborhood was rocked after a WRTA bus crashed into a home on Swanson Road. The crash knocked the house seven feet off its foundation.
“I just thought it was thunder. I came out and my neighbor came running over and she said, ‘did you see?’ We came down here, there were people everywhere,” said a neighbor, Barbara Norman.
The bus went off the road, through the front lawn of the house and right into Chris Erikson’s kitchen. He was at work at the time, but his wife Laura was in the shower and his three kids were in the next room.
“It sounded like an earthquake from what they said and the kids did’t know what was going on,” said Erikson. “[They had] cuts and scrapes on their legs and they were all really shaken up. Other than that, everybody was fine.”
On the bus, the driver was badly hurt and one passenger had cuts to their face.
“Our first arriving companies found the driver of the bus RAT bus heavily entrapped. He remained that way for an hour and 15 minutes. Multiple rescue crews were required to extricate him from the city of Worcester as well as the Auburn Fire Department,” said Captain Eric Otter son of the Auburn Fire Department.
The fire department said the bus, sitting in the kitchen, was practically holding up the house.
“Once they pull the bus out, the structure is not going to be very good at all,” said the grandfather, Lennie Erickson.
Crews worked very slowly to remove the bus from the house.
“A matter of three feet could have been disaster. I mean, major disaster. It’s just amazing,” said Steve Erickson, the victim’s uncle.
The two were at home and hurt in the crash.
“I hear…the house shaking and then I thought it was a hurricane and then bam, I think I blacked out for a second. Something fell and cut my head right here, I got two staples. And then I get up, I see Kane on the floor, I pull him up, I see a bus through the house, it was crazy,” said one of the brothers.
“All you see and hear is a bus fly right through. The refrigerator fell right on me and I had to push it away and then just ran to my brother,” said one of the brothers, Austin Erickson.
The fire department condemned the home. The home will be torn down. The investigation as to what caused this crash was still ongoing.