Jacksonville, FL : Five injured, Big rig crashes into building in New Town on Wednesday afternoon, July 23, 2014

A tractor-trailer collided with a JTA bus and then crashed into a building in the New Town area, just west of downtown, late Wednesday afternoon, injuring at least five people.

The crash happened at West Beaver and Rushing streets just after 5 p.m.

Two adults and a teen on the bus received minor injuries and were transported to a hospital. Officials said the driver of the bus was not injured.

Officials said at least two people were inside the commercial building, which houses a seafood market downstairs and apartments that are under renovation upstairs. Those people were able to exit through the rear of the building and received only minor injuries.

One of those was Robert Jones, who has worked at Discount Seafood for more than 20 years. His sister, Selena Thomas, said she was worried when she heard about the accident.

"I just began to pray," Thomas said. " I mean my brother is a Christian man, and you know, I just began to pray and ask that God -- I heard that five other people was injured -- and I just was praying that they is all covered."

Officials said no one was trapped in the building by the accident, despite the fact it partially collapsed.

"It could have been much worse," said JFRD District Chief Robin Gainey. "Usually when we come by this structure at this time of day there's three to four people sitting outside. They sit around outside the fish market. We were very fortunate that no one was sitting there, no one was impacting by this truck directly."

At one point the semi was leaking diesel fuel, but that's been taken care of. The bigger concern now is the safety of the building.

Source :
Big rig crashes into building, injures at least 5