Junior's Lounge crash: Truck, building 'were essentially one piece,' driver struck said

Before crashing his truck into Junior’s Lounge in Hyde Park on Monday morning, Craig Allen Dickson was involved in at least one other collision.

The 33-year-old Hopewell Junction resident was identified as the driver of the Peterbilt tractor pulling a loaded dump trailer, and the only casualty in the incident.

One day after the crash at the pub and apartment building on Salt Point Turnpike, Hyde Park police revealed details of what happened before the truck came to a stop and what injuries were incurred. But the reason for the wreckage, and what led to Dickson’s apparently erratic control of the truck owned by MJD Construction in Pawling is still under investigation.

Two were inside the building, including Louis Rossi, the owner of Junior’s Lounge and one of the apartment residents.

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Police responded to the address at 504 Salt Point Turnpike around 10:41 a.m. Monday to the report of a two-car collision and partial building collapse.

Police believe Dickson was “involved in a crash” at Weed and Smith streets in the City of Poughkeepsie and left the scene; witnesses told police they then saw the truck driving “erratically and went into the westbound lane of traffic several times on Salt Point Turnpike.” The trailer then struck a Toyota Highlander, flipping it over and leaving it on the side of the road. Its driver, Kimberly Glatz, was transported to Vassar Brothers Medical Center for evaluation, but police said she did not suffer major injury.