By the Daily Post staff
An unlicensed 17-year-old boy borrowed his father’s Dodge pickup and crashed it into Fire Station 2 at University Avenue and Runnymede Street in East Palo Alto, according to firefighters.
Menlo Park Fire District Firefighters inside the station heard tires screeching and a loud bang just outside the front doors of the station’s public entrance, just after 3 p.m. Tuesday.
They found three teenagers in the truck that had struck a retaining wall for the fire station’s wheel chair access ramp and then the front steps to the building, which appeared to have deflected the truck from running into the building.
All three teenagers in the cab were uninjured, but the 17-year-old unlicensed driver will have some explaining to do, after he admitted to firefighters that he had “borrowed” his father’s truck, said Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman.
He said this is the third time the fire station has nearly been hit since it was rebuilt in 2016.
“We added concrete bollards to protect the corner of the new structure when it was rebuilt and they have twice done their job extremely effectively,” Schapelhouman said. “We also raised the overall height of the station compared to the height of the street and sidewalk, which appears to have helped as well. This is an extremely fortified essential service building by design.
“That said, these kids are lucky no one was on the sidewalk and that they weren’t injured themselves,” Schapelhouman said. “We’ll look at adding bollard style bases to the sheared off hand rails as well, because this is the first time a vehicle has made it down the building this far.”
The damage, estimated to be in the thousands, ranged from broken and scared concrete, to sheered of metal pedestrian hand rails.
Teens are having such a difficult time in the pandemic!