Imagine: You’re sitting in your favorite bar when you hear the unmistakable metal-on-metal of a car crash outside. The sound gets closer. And closer. Suddenly the wall caves in and a dump truck crashes through the bar, plowing over tables and chairs.
Sounds like a fever dream nightmare brought on by too much diesel fumes? Unfortunately, it was all too real a tragedy in Walton, Kentucky.
According to the Boone County Sheriff’s Office, it got a call a few minutes before 4:30 PM on Tuesday, April 8th. A Chevy Equinox tried to make a left turn across the U.S. 42 and smashed into a dump truck passing through the intersection traveling in the other direction.
The truck driver slammed on the brakes and steered hard to the right to avoid the Equinox, but struck the little crossover anyway. The impact threw the Equinox off the road where it hit a guard rail and flipped over. The dump truck crashed off the road, smashed through four unoccupied, parked cars, and collided with the Boondocks Bar and Grill. The truck didn’t stop there, it plowed through the bar’s wall before coming to a stop–inside the building.
Aftermath of the dump truck crash in a Kentucky bar
Amanda Dearing works at Boondocks. She remembered, “We heard it, and then it came through the building, and then glass, everything just went everywhere. It sounded like a freight train going through a wall.”
In addition to Dearing, there were six patrons inside the building. But by a stroke of luck they were all sitting along the bar in front of Dearing. Though the truck tore through the building, it didn’t make it to the bar.
Authorities transported the dump truck driver to the hospital with minor injuries. The Equinox driver suffered “critical life-threatening injuries” and is also in the hospital. Two of the Equinox’s passengers–Eva Mulberry (91), Betty Hillard (89)–were both pronounced dead at the scene.
