London police say an LTC bus crashed into a pet clinic after it was hit by a car that ran a red light.
The bus hit the North London Neighbourhood Pet Clinic at the corner of Waterloo Street and Oxford Street just before midnight Tuesday. According to police, an officer had spotted a silver Volkswagen Jetta driving the wrong way on a side street around 11:45 p.m. The officer tried to stop the vehicle near the intersection of Hyman Street and Waterloo Street, but the driver turned off the headlights and took off north on Waterloo Street.
The car then went through the red light at Waterloo and Oxford and hit the bus, which was heading east on Oxford. The force of the collision sent the bus through the wall of the pet clinic and into its front reception area.
“The driver of the Volkswagen exited the car and fled the area on foot. Police searched the area with negative results,” police said in a statement issued Wednesday morning.
The driver of the bus was taken to hospital with minor injuries. No other injuries were reported.
The bus remained wedged in the front of the building Wednesday morning as structural engineers worked to assess the damage.
The clinic's business manager, Brent Barr, found out about the crash when his security company called him about a glass break alarm and motion sensor activity at 11:51 p.m. on Tuesday.
"By the time I got here, [police] had the whole thing cordoned off. A four-door sedan was completely destroyed in the middle of the intersection and the bus was sitting where it is," said Barr. "There were no animals here at the time, thank gosh. There was no furry family members, there was no staff, there was no team members here. Had that hit us at another time of day it would have been very, very serious."
The clinic is still open for retail sales, but its clients are being directed to the Westmount Neighbourhood Pet Clinic on Wonderland Road South.
"People who had appointments are being really, really accommodating by going over there, because otherwise we would be snookered," said Barr.
This is the second time in two weeks that a vehicle has crashed into the clinic. The first one came through a side wall from the parking lot, causing $30,000 damage.
Police have estimated the damage from the most recent collision to be roughly $610,000.
"At the end of the day, walls can be replaced, brick can be replaced, paint can be put on walls. It's money. Lives, you can't get those back," Barr said about the additional expense of repairs.
Anyone with information in relation to this incident is asked to call the London Police Service Traffic Management Unit at (519) 661-5680 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477). Information can also be sent in online anonymously to www.londoncrimestoppers.com.
