Uninvited : Truck Rams Home After Brakes Fail

A dump truck carrying about four tons of broken concrete lost its brakes Thursday on a hilly street in San Juan Capistrano, roared past a school and crashed into a living room where two men were sitting on a couch, sheriff’s deputies said.

The truck driver, Louis Guerrero, 32, of Santa Ana, suffered a broken foot when he leaped from the vehicle just before it jumped a curb, shattered a concrete block wall and slammed into the home at 26256 Via Mistral. The two men inside suffered cuts and bruises.

The incident occurred just before noon. Sheriff’s Department Lt. Richard J. Olson said a crossing guard at the Marco Forster Junior High School on Camino Del Avion saw the truck coming down the hill, with the driver waving his arms and honking his horn.

The truck crossed busy Del Obispo Street and careened onto Via Mistral. Inside the home, Matthew Alex, 29, was sitting with a friend, Tramonti Zanetti, 28.

“We heard two varooms, one when he hit the concrete wall and one when the truck came into the house,” Alex said. “It hit our sofa and threw it across the room, along with us. I guess the sofa actually saved our lives.”

A neighbor, Norva Waterhouse, said that, despite the noise of her washing machine, she heard the truck’s horn honking “just before the big crashing sound.”

She and other neighbors ran out, she said, and saw Alex and Zanetti stumble out of the house and the driver get up from the street.

“It was like an explosion,” she said.

Peter Loncarevich, a field services supervisor for the city of San Juan Capistrano, estimated damage to the building, which is one of three units in a condominium complex, at “maybe more than $30,000,” not including contents.

The men were treated at San Clemente General Hospital. Olson said the incident is under investigation.