Students at a rural Minnesota school were frightened but OK after a runaway semitrailer truck crashed through a wall of the elementary school Tuesday morning in Lyle, Minn., a small town near the Iowa border.
Police said the frightening incident easily could have been much worse.
The semi struck a dividing wall between two classrooms, said Mark May, chief deputy with the Mower County Sheriff's Office. If it had hit a few feet to either side, the entire cab and trailer probably would have plowed through the classroom and into the adjoining classroom, May said.
What's more, one of the truck's fuel tanks ruptured on impact, spilling diesel fuel into the school. May said that it was fortunate that the fuel didn't ignite.
The truck veered off State Hwy. 218 at 8:25 a.m. in the town of 550 residents south of Austin, then rammed into the school, with the truck's cab penetrating the building wall.
"We were talking about Martin Luther King Jr. Day and all of a sudden we just heard this crash," said Jake Woyen, a fourth-grader at the school. "It was scary."
The truck was involved in an accident that caused the driver to lose control, May said, adding that there was no indication the driver tried to brake or steer away from the school after leaving the highway.
"He traveled a heck of a distance," May said. "Why he didn't brake, I don't know."