Truck crashes into Lakeside storage facility

A man was taken to the hospital after barreling his pickup through a Lakeside storage complex Sunday morning.

Martin Tetachuk, who manages Lakeside Mini Storage, said that he got the call at around 5:25 a.m. When he arrived at the scene, he saw tenants’ stuff scattered around and a truck at the end of the structure.

“It went into one and all the way into four storage units and almost out the end,” Tetachuk said. “The wall was pushed out at the end.” The truck took out a power pole, a sign and a chain-link fence before hitting the storage structure, which sits just off of U.S. 93. The power pole was just “hanging from the wires,” according to Tetachuk.

Emergency responders had taken the driver to the hospital by the time Tetachuk arrived, but the truck remained on scene for hours while officials sorted out the mess. Tetachuk called tenants to come down and identify their damaged items.

“We are now trying to contact somebody to come down, do the cleanup and rebuild the place as quickly as possible,” Tetachuk said.

He said that the Montana Highway Patrol trooper, the Somers-Lakeside Fire Department and Flathead Electric Coop crews all did a great job in their response.

And even though his place of business was heavily damaged, Tetachuk said that it’s fortunate the truck didn’t leave the road further down. “Then he would have taken out the fuel pumps at the Conoco, and then we would have had a problem,” he said.