Runaway semi crashes through wall of school in southern Minnesota

Police said incident in Lyle, Minn., easily could have been much worse.

January 17, 2018 at 3:42AM
The Minnesota State Patrol investigates a two-vehicle crash Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018, morning that sent a semi-trailer crashing into Lyle Public School from Hwy. 218 in Lyle, Minn.
The Minnesota State Patrol investigates a two-vehicle crash Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018, morning that sent a semi-trailer crashing into Lyle Public School from Hwy. 218 in Lyle, Minn. (Associated Press/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

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."

School officials told parents that two students suffered minor injuries, said Eileen Woyen, Jake's mother. The school followed its emergency evacuation plan and immediately sent the children across the street to Our Saviors Lutheran Church, where their parents were told to pick them up. The children ran out of the school building without coats in the zero-degree weather, Woyen said.

The highway is about 100 yards from the school and the truck had to cross snow-covered ground.

"It was a pretty decent speed to get over the snow and everything," Woyen said.

The Minnesota State Patrol is handling the investigation, May said. The truck driver, whose name was not released, refused medical attention at the scene, he said.

John Reinan • 612-673-7402

A semitrailer is embedded in the side of Lyle Public School Tuesday morning, Jan. 16, 2018 after it veered off a highway and crashed through the wall of the elementary school in Lyle, Minnesota. The semi left Highway 218 in Lyle after trying to avoid a car making a turn, striking it in the right rear of the vehicle. (Eric Johnson/The Daily Herald via AP)
A semitrailer was stuck in the side of Lyle Public School Tuesday morning. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)
about the writer

about the writer

John Reinan

Reporter

John Reinan is a news reporter covering Greater Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. For the Star Tribune, he's also covered the western Twin Cities suburbs, as well as marketing, advertising and consumer news. He's been a reporter for more than 20 years and also did a stint at a marketing agency.

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