TAMPA — Ana Iris Millan's usual shift at La Teresita restaurant was anything but usual Sunday night. It was interrupted by a dump truck on the loose.
"We don't know what happened," Millan, the restaurant's manager, said. "It just rolled into the house. It was pretty bad."
Police also weren't sure how the truck ended up in the living room at 3215 W Saint Joseph's St., a nearby one-story brick house.
According to a preliminary investigation, driver Daniel C. Echols, 53, of Dunedin parked his 1998 Volvo dump truck about 8:50 p.m. at a parking lot for the nearby La Teresita Plus Club at 3204 W Columbus Drive.
He went into a cafe and a short time later, the truck rolled into the home, knocking a TV off a stand, but causing no injuries. Police theorized that Echols had failed to shift the vehicle fully into "park." Two people renting the house, which Millan said is owned by Luis Capdevila, came running. "It was pretty scary. Everybody was screaming," she said.
La Teresita is well-known in Tampa's Cuban community. The Capdevila family founded it after emigrating from Cuba in 1962.
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