Cleanup has begun at the Kingston Parish Hall after an SUV smashed into the building earlier this week.
First responders were called to the hall on Route 845, next to MacDonald Consolidated School, early Tuesday evening.
Rev. Douglas Painter, priest and rector of the Anglican Parish of Kingston, heard a loud bang from his home next door around 6:15 p.m.
“It sounded like somebody had put some boards into a skip or something like that,” Painter said in a phone interview Wednesday.
Curious about the noise, Painter looked out front and toward the school, also next to his home, but did not see anything out of the ordinary.
The reverend said after not hearing anything else, he thought nothing serious had happened and decided to lay down for a bit.
“I rested for about 15 minutes until I got a call from one of my parishioners who said ‘you’ve got to get over to the hall, there’s been an accident,'” said Painter.
He rushed to the parish hall to find the SUV halfway through the wall. The driver was shaken up but not seriously hurt.
A vehicle crashed into the Kingston Parish Hall on the evening of June 15, 2021. (Image: Douglas Painter/Facebook)
Painter said his biggest concern was the safety of everyone involved in the incident, including the first responders on the scene.
“Seeing a car halfway through our wall and over a stairwell that goes downstairs, I was concerned about everybody getting inside the building, worrying about the possibility of collapse,” he said.
Painter said the situation could have been much worse. The parish’s custodian was inside at the time along with the parish cat, Rick, but both made it out unharmed.
The hall will be closed until further notice as crews clean up debris and work to determine the extent of damage, he said.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” said Painter. “No one has given me any of these massive alarm bells that the hall will be completely taken down.”
Painter said a structural engineer who visited the hall Wednesday afternoon determined the building is still structurally sound and repair work can commence once they receive the go-ahead from the fire marshal.
“I just thank God that nobody was injured.”
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