Car strikes lawmaker’s office
DUNBAR TWP. – Sen. Richard A. Kasunic said he was glad the driver who crashed through his office, a mobile home in the island separating the north and southbound lanes of Route 119, early Wednesday was not seriously hurt. He was especially happy that the 5 a.m. accident did not occur about four hours later when he and his staff would have been inside.
“The most important thing is we’re not grieving anyone,” Kasunic said.
The grieving could have been for Kasunic because the car went directly through his office inside the trailer – crushing the desk where he planned to be sitting at 9 a.m.
His secretary Janet Michael occupies the adjacent office, which didn’t fare much better than her Kasunic’s. Only a few broken wooden studs remain from the wall that separated the two offices.
State police responded to the accident, but a report on the mishap was not available at press time.
Kasunic said when he answered the phone at 6:20 a.m. and it was the police calling, his heart felt like it was in his throat as he immediately thought the call was about his 91-year-old father.
He said he was actually relieved when he was told what happened and that nobody was seriously injured.
When he arrived, the car was still in the trailer.
Skid marks indicate that the vehicle slid from the right northbound lane and crossed the left before it entered the parking lot and hit the office.
The office is actually two mobile homes that are connected at one end. There is a space between the remaining lengths of the trailers.
After the collision, the driver walked to a near by residence and called 911.
Kasunic said he was told what the driver, a young man, told police.
He said a vehicle in front of him struck an animal sending it over that vehicle and into the young man’s path. He took evasive action, but lost control of his car and hit the trailer.
The car went completely through the first trailer and hit the second trailer. A wall on the second trailer was buckled.
Lost were some irreplaceable mementos – like photos taken with President Clinton, Terry Bradshaw, veterans and one taken at the ribbon cutting for opening of the Mon-Fayette Expressway’s Mason-Dixon Line section – which he collected in the 22 years he leased that office.
He moved in after using his home as his office during his first year as a legislator.
Two state-owned computers, two desks, chairs, a typewriter and file cabinets were destroyed and documents for projects and requests from constituents were also lost.
“Thank God nobody got hurt, including the young man,” Kasunic said. “If we’d have been sitting here, there would have been two people seriously hurt.”
He said until the landlord decides whether to fix or replace the trailers, all calls to his that office will be automatically routed to his Harrisburg office. The number there is 717-787-7175.
Kasunic asks his constituents to be patient and the office will be operating again as soon as possible.