Update 6/17/223 – According to the Henry County Sheriff’s Blotter, Mr. Ingle is charged with a DUI – Drugs or Combination of Drugs. A First Appearance is scheduled for July 17, 2023, at 9 AM at the Henry County Courthouse.
The Henry County Sheriff’s Office released the identity of the driver of the pickup truck that drove into the Henry County OEM Building around 5:30 AM on June 16, 2023. Nickolas J. Ingle, 20, of Galva was charged with Failure to Reduce Speed to Avoid an Accident, Improper Lane Usage and Driving Under the Influence. No additional information is available at this time.
A pickup truck drove off Highway 34, through the south yard of the Henry County Office of Emergency Management (OEM), into the building early Friday morning and the entire accident was caught on camera. The Kewanee Community Fire Protection District was dispatched for a fire alarm but found a truck in the building, not a fire. OEM Director, Mat Schnepple, was alerted of the fire alarm as well and said he was expecting to find a false alarm. Mat Schnepple told RegionalMediaNews that he walked in the front door of the facility and found no problems until he walked into the south room used for training, where he saw a pickup truck inside the building and partially through the inside wall. According to Mr. Schnepple, the driver of the pickup truck was still in the driver’s seat when police arrived and was removed without extrication. No staff was in the building at the time of the accident and the driver of the truck was not injured. At this time, training scheduled for July in the classroom that was heavily damaged is in question. The ‘board-up’ crew is onsite working to secure the inside wall, which is a load-bearing wall, and board up the outside wall. The building is safe for staff to conduct OEM operations and they contacted their insurance company first thing this morning. The underground power lines to the building and trailers in the south parking lot was destroyed but they are working on a plan to restore power to the trailers and building. Tire tracks are visible from the highway into the building. We have reached out to the Henry County Sheriff’s Office for more information.
