Nov 16, 2012 2 min read

MONONGAHELA – Judith Hough had just retired to bed and was watching a television weather report Thursday night when she heard a vehicle engine revving outside her Carroll Township house.

Seconds later, she heard a crash when a pickup truck slammed into her house at 1913 Route 2023, critically injuring the driver.

“The whole house shook,” Hough said Friday.

Township police said the driver, David Phillips, 20, of 192 Hazelkirk Road in Carroll, was flown in critical condition to Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, following the 11:20 p.m. accident in the township’s Dunkirk section.

Police said Phillips’ truck caught fire when it crashed at a high speed into the concrete front porch and the above-ground basement wall, taking out the natural gas meter. A passerby and neighbor used buckets of water to help a Carroll police office armed with a fire extinguisher put out the flames, Hough said.

“The whole house shifted a half-inch,” she said.

It took rescue workers 20 minutes to free Phillips from the vehicle, she said.

She said she is prevented from going inside the house to retrieve anything, Phillips’ vehicle insurance company might make arrangements for her family to stay in a motel.

She was home at the time of the crash with a son and nephew, who were playing a video game. She said she knows Phillips because he used to wrestle at school with her son.

The township’s zoning officer and a building inspector determined the crash caused nearly $40,000 in damages, which are repairable, Hough said.