Van Carrying Special Needs Adults Slams Into Fair Lawn Home

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A van carrying adults with special needs slammed into a home Monday in Bergen County, briefly trapping some of the passengers.

They were on their way to an outing but didn't get very far, CBS2's Reena Roy reported.

At around 10 a.m., the 28-year-old driver was pulling out of a parking lot and went straight across Zink Place in Fair Lawn and into the home. He got confused while pulling out of the lot around and instead of turning left or right went straight across the street into the home, police said.

Thankfully no one was inside the home at the time.

Two of the four passengers were trapped for about an hour because their wheelchair accessible rear end exit was blocked by a pole. Several emergency workers had to remove a metal safety bar from the side door in order to finally get them out.

One woman with a walker and a young man in a wheelchair were carried and placed onto stretchers then taken to the hospital along with their aide and the driver -- all of them with minor injuries, Roy reported.

"I'm shaken up myself, I'm really stunned," said Ometa Pope, Director of Adult Training Services. "I'm worried about our consumers, of course, I'm worried about our staff as well. I'm just happy that nobody in the house was hurt."

"The way that the van struck the house, instead of going through the house it happened to bounce back. Maybe that's good for the way the house was built although there is a lot of damage to the front of the home," said Sgt. Brian Metzler with the Fair Lawn police department.

The homeowners are currently out of the country and their home is now unlivable because of all of the damage, Roy reported.

Investigators are inside the home looking at a possible gas leak caused by the crash, Roy reported.