Man treated for shock after cement mixer crashes into house in Irish town

The lorry smashed into a house on Main Street, Pomeroy, Co Tyrone shortly before 8am.

The man was rescued from a first-floor flat in an adjacent property and had to be taken down a ladder to safety.

NIFRS group commander Mark Maginnes said that a structural assessment was being conducted to determine whether the building might be at risk of collapse.

Mr Maginnes said: “Fire crews rescued the gentleman from a first-floor flat and escorted him down a ladder because it was not safe for him to get out of the property any other way. He was treated for shock.”

He added: “There was a family in the house that the truck collided with but thankfully nobody was hurt in that property.”

Sinn Féin councillor Cathal Mallaghan said the crash had caused substantial damage to the building and that residents he had spoken to were “really shocked”.

“People were getting up having their breakfast. It’s the last thing you’d expect obviously,” he said.

“The room that the lorry went through was the games room in the home. If it had of been later in the day perhaps children would have been in there playing. So it is really lucky there was nobody hurt.”

A number of houses along the road were evacuated as a precaution and the road was closed.