ST. GEORGE — Washington City Police officers as well as Washington City Fire Department personnel responded to the Washington City Post Office on Tuesday morning after they received a call that the post office had been hit by a vehicle, and the driver had left the scene.
Officers were alerted to the incident at approximately 10:17 a.m. when a witness called dispatch to describe the vehicle, Lt. Kory Klotz told St. George News.
Klotz said the driver, an elderly male in his early- to mid-70s, entered the post office and later returned to his vehicle. As he was turning in an attempt to leave the parking lot his foot came off the brake and he hit the building.
“As he got closer to the building his foot slipped off the brakes and he jumped the curb and hit the east wall of the building,” Klotz said.
The driver then left, he said.
The witness saw the damaged wall and was able to get a good description of the vehicle and a license plate number, he said, which aided in officers tracking down the driver.
In an interview with the driver, officers learned that the man did not believe that he had caused any damage so he left, Klotz said, adding that when he was tracked down, he returned to the post office and was very cooperative.
The driver had recently had a cast removed from his foot which may have hampered some of its functionality, Klotz said of the incident.
The driver, who was wearing a seatbelt, was uninjured and his vehicle sustained only minor damage; however, Klotz said, the post office received fairly extensive damage to a weight-bearing wall.
The building was hit near the entrance to the area where the post office boxes are located, Klotz said. The Washington City Fire Department determined that it was a weight-bearing wall and that area of the post office needed to be shut down.
“It’s going to be very cumbersome on the post office,” Klotz said.
Floyd Wagoner, a strategic communications specialist for the United States Postal Service issued the following statement regarding the incident:
The safety and well-being of our employees and customers is of the utmost importance to the U.S. Postal Service. At this time, and due to the ongoing investigation of today’s vehicle incident at the Washington City Post Office, no information on the incident can be disclosed at this time. The U.S. Postal Service can share that there were no injuries reported as a result of today’s vehicle incident.
Washington City P.O. Box customers can retrieve their mail and packages during normal business hours at the Washington City office’s retail counter, until facility repairs can be safely completed.
No other injuries were reported and the driver was cited for leaving the scene of the incident, Klotz said.
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