A van barreled into a residential building in San Francisco’s Mission District early Friday, killing the driver, fire officials said.
Around 1:50 a.m., the vehicle sped through multiple intersections before ramming into the front of the four-story apartment building on the 2100 block of Harrison Street, causing significant damage and blocking multiple intersections for hours into the morning.
Michael Dzamba, who lives in the building, said he was jolted awake by the impact of the crash.
“We just heard an explosion and the whole building shook,” he told KQED. “I jumped out of bed and went to go see it, and then I just felt confused and sad [because] just based on the impact … it’s really hard to believe that anyone survived that.”
Police responded to the crash around 1:56 a.m. and found almost the entire van had passed the threshold of the building, into its lobby, according to the San Francisco Police Department.
Officers extricated the driver, who was assessed by paramedics and pronounced dead at the scene.
No occupants of the building — which Dzamba estimated has about a dozen apartments — were injured, according to SFFPD. The ground floor of the building includes two office rooms and a garage, but no residential units, according to Dzamba.
Surveillance footage shows what’s believed to be the white van that crashed driving slowly up Mariposa Street toward Potrero Avenue just before 1:50 a.m. About 30 seconds later, it appears to have turned back toward Harrison Street, zipping through multiple intersections including Bryant Street and Mariposa Street.
The city’s fire and building inspection departments assessed the structural integrity of the building following the crash, and tagged it for repairs. They determined that apartment occupants could remain for the time being.
When officials pulled the van out of the building, the front half appeared mangled, with its sides completely crumpled back toward its rear wheels. Parts of the building’s lobby walls and ceiling were dangling off, exposing wires and wood, and an internal wall leading to the building’s garage had also been slammed through.
Around 8:30 a.m., the San Francisco Fire Department said first responders had cleared the scene. SFPD’s Major Accident Investigation Team is investigating the crash.
KQED’s Ted Goldberg contributed to this report.
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