Semi truck finally extracted from Kelowna home

Samer Shehadeh and his family have undergone a tumultuous month, after a semi-truck crashed into their townhome in mid-April.

On Monday, that stark reminder was finally taken away by a towing company.

“It's a big relief,” Shehadeh told Kelowna10. “I think it took way, way too much time for it to be shored up, to have a piece of wood that took almost a month to get installed just so it's safe enough for them to remove the truck.”

A large wrecker truck then a tow truck pulled away the smashed-up semi that had been lodged inside his home for weeks.

“So it's a big relief the first step and obviously the rebuilding process now.”

The incident has been an emotional roller coaster. The family is currently staying at an Airbnb while they deal with insurance companies and figure out whether they even want to continue living in the area.

“It's just going through all of that work now and just making sure that we get a house again and based on that, me and my wife will assess, do we even want to move back into this house?,” he explained.

“There's been a lot of bad stigma with what's happened. And the safety of the corner is a big worry as well.”

The crash caused a lot of damage to the house. But in the weeks after, a string of robberies at the vacant property added further stress. Their car, which was stolen, was eventually found, but several valuable and irreplaceable items were not.

“Our wedding DVDs, kindergarten, Grade 1 memorabilia for the kids, two briefcases full of just stuff that you cannot replace. So that really, really bugged me,” Shehadeh said. “People just took advantage of the situation. It sickens me that people will do that kind of stuff to a to somebody that's really been dealing with the truck.”

There’s no timetable for when Shehadeh and his family can move back in at this time. It could be upwards of eight months to a year.