MIDDLESEX TOWNSHIP (KDKA) — Middlesex Township Police tell KDKA-TV that a driver will be cited after a trailer carrying heavy equipment broke loose from a dump truck and smashed into the front of a restaurant.

Kate Hairston was inside Hoover’s Restaurant along Route 8 when the trailer scraped across the parking lot, plowed over the mailbox, smashed a sign apart and slammed into a brick planter. She describes hearing a loud boom and then seeing debris fly through the air.

Restaurant owner Bob Hoover couldn’t help but think of the fatal accident five years ago, a mile and a half south on Route 8.

Spencer Morrison and two of his triplets died when a wood chipper broke loose from a truck that was pulling it.

No one was hurt in Tuesday’s accident, but Middlesex Township Police Sgt. Randy Ruediger tells KDKA that the driver and the owner of the truck will be cited.

Sgt. Ruediger says the hitch was not properly locked in and that the chains used were not appropriate to hold the load. He also says there were multiple equipment violations.

But the driver of the truck, Chris Harris, who says he works for Rock Bottom Paving, says everything was attached properly. He says he hit a bump in the road, and he looked back in his mirror to see the trailer had unhitched. He says he’s thankful no one was hurt.

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