Pickup truck crashes through former Cambria bank building, CHP says
A former Cambria bank building was in shambles Friday after a driver preparing to leave the Village Shopping Center parking lot drove his pickup truck through the structure.
Gustavo Martinez Lagunas, 49, of Cambria, “accelerated and for unknown reason couldn’t stop” his maroon Toyota Tundra pickup at about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to CHP Officer Jose Meza.
Lagunas’ vehicle smashed into the front of the vacant building at 1276 Tamson Drive, continuing through and out the back of the structure that used to house Heritage Oaks Bank, near Gym One, Meza said.
Meza said the accident apparently didn’t injure Lagunas or the two dogs that were in the truck with him.
The officer said there’s no suspicion that the driver was under the influence of intoxicants.
The Tamson Drive structure was severely damaged, inside and out, but was not deemed be a total loss, according to Cambria Fire Department Capt. Johnathan Gibson, because the building’s internal support structure wasn’t compromised.
The CHP is investigating the incident.
Wednesday’s crash wasn’t the only vehicle-versus-building collision in Cambria in recent years.
The A Matter of Taste culinary shop was declared a total loss and the building uninhabitable in August after a pickup hit and ruptured a gas line behind the Burton Drive building, causing a fire that demolished the interior and its contents.
The building’s roof is collapsing and much of the parking lot the structure shares with the nearby French Corner Bakery and Cambria Drug & Gift is still blocked off. Nobody was seriously injured in that incident.
The bakery was severely damaged in 2017 when a truck sped over the curb and parking lot, hitting other vehicles and pushing one of them through the shop’s wall and into the serving area. Several people were seriously injured.
