Car Crushed ... by a Runaway Wrecking Ball!

This is the sort of thing you thought only happens in the movies: a crane was demolishing a building with a wrecking ball when its cable snapped, sending the 1,500 pound (680 kg) ball tumbling downhill into town!

As it gained momentum, the wrecking ball rumbled from the campus along North Main Street, pinballing back and forth across the street, hitting nine parked cars and damaging curbs with each impact.

The ball came to a stop when it hit a car:

Alex Habay was in his Ford Taurus, stopped at a traffic light in downtown Meadville, Crawford County, yesterday morning, thinking about nothing, idly listening to a radio commercial while on his way to his summer job at the YMCA.

That’s when a 1,500-pound wrecking ball smashed into the rear of his car.

"I was in complete bewilderment," said Mr. Habay, 20, of Hampton, a junior at Allegheny College. "At first I thought it was a car, but when I turned around there was no car.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has the scoop (story by Steve Levin, Photo by Jim Stefanucci/The Meadville Tribune): Link – via JWZ