WHEELING - Gene Ryan stood in the middle of Lind Street Sunday evening watching as a heavy-duty tow truck pulled a Wheeling Fire Department engine from the front of his house.
"Well, I'm going to need a new porch and a new garage door," Ryan said.
Ryan, who has lived in the two-story frame home for the past nine years, had replaced the porch two years ago.
Engine 2 was responding to a call of a tripped fire alarm in a building further up on Lind Street at the time of the incident, about 4 p.m. Sunday, Assistant Fire Chief Tom Wilson said.
The engine was traveling east on 14th Street and had to veer slightly to the left to enter Lind Street. But whether it was human error or mechanical malfunction that caused the driver to lose control of the engine, Wilson couldn't say. But suddenly, the truck bearing three firefighters struck the house and became lodged beneath the porch.
None of the yet-to-be-identified firefighters were injured. Ryan and his wife were not home at the time of the incident, Wilson said.
Two dogs and two cats that were in the residence were not injured, Ryan said.
Ryan and several family members were on their way to the Upper Ohio Valley Italian Festival and saw engine 2 heading up 14th Street. A short time later, they noticed a large group of people standing in front of his house.
"I came home and found this," he said.
It took more than four hours to free the engine from the house. Finally, just after 8 p.m, with a heavy duty tow truck from Fleet Service of South Wheeling pulling carefully, the porch creaked slightly as did crumbled metal from the fire engine. Work stopped briefly as pieces of Ryan's garage door were pulled from beneath the front bumper of the fire engine, where they had become lodged.
A few minutes later, the effort resumed and the engine was pulled free.
The roof of Ryan's porch was supported by a large beam but whether the residence was structurally sound hadn't been determined by late Sunday.
For a time, the engine, the driver's side of the windshield broken, its light bar gone, sat near the intersection of 14th, Wood, and Lind streets before it was removed from the scene.
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