Insurance office damaged in truck mishap

Insurance agent Mike Murphy was sitting at his desk in his corner office Thursday afternoon when the walls came tumbling down.

"I didn't know what had happened," Murphy said from outside his office at Hayes Murphy Sharp Brackney (HMSB) Insurance, 204 N. College Ave., Greencastle. "Stuff started flying off the walls. The desk slid out away from me. My bookshelves came down."

Truck struck wall of insurance office after its brakes failed.

Murphy originally thought the construction crew working on the gasline along North College Avenue had struck the HMSB building with a backhoe.

But in reality, the office sustained an estimated $40,000-$60,000 damage when the brakes on a Clay County man's truck went out and the vehicle crashed into the building about 1:30 p.m. Thursday.

According to Greencastle Police Det. Michael Collins' report, a 2001 Ford F-150 pickup, driven by James Wardlow, 57, Brazil, was northbound through the parking lot at the PNC Bank building (the former Central National Bank) when his brakes failed.

The truck "jumped the curb and tried to make Murphy's office a drive-through," Det. Capt. Randy Seipel told the Banner Graphic.

The driver was fortunate he was not injured, Seipel said, calling Murphy "very lucky" that he was not hurt.

"All the debris basically surrounded him," the officer said of Murphy. "The bookcase was over his head, and it pushed the desk out from under him.

"When we got here, I took one look at the corner of the building and knew it was his office," Seipel continued, saying because of that he expected to see Murphy's large aquarium shattered and fish flopping around.

"Impact shoved his desk into that big aquarium but it didn't break it," he added.

But the accident did cause significant damage to the insurance office at the northwest corner of College Avenue and Columbia Street.

City Building Inspector David Varvel was called to the scene and found stress cracks in the south side wall, Seipel said, explaining that those cracks call into question the integrity of the mortar between the bricks of that wall.

Interior shot shows toppled bookcase, other damage.

That's one reason for the $40,000-$60,000 damage estimate on the HMSB building, which includes about $15,000 to the interior, police said.

While Wardlow was also uninjured, his truck sustained an estimated $5,000 damage.

Murphy, meanwhile, could see that he avoided possible serious injury by a mere three feet.

The veteran insurance agent acknowledged that he's sat behind his desk over the years, often looking out the window to ponder the notion that someone driving along North College Avenue might one day lose control of a vehicle and crash into his office.

Then just that happened Thursday afternoon.

"That was close there," he said. "Too close."