Odd accident and fire at Gary "Music" Miller's

[Cameron]

Former DJ loses home in fiery accident

Dave Malloy/The Herald-Dispatch
A man sustained burns and multiple injuries Saturday, May 12, 2012, when his car ran into a home in Westmoreland.

May 12, 2012 @ 11:54 PM
DAVID E. MALLOY
Herald-Dispatch.com
HUNTINGTON  — A car slammed into a house in Westmoreland Saturday morning, injuring the driver and setting the vehicle and the house at 410 Camden Road on fire. Two people inside the home escaped the fire.

The accident was reported about 8:03 a.m. just off U.S. 60 westbound across the street from the Fruth Pharmacy in Westmoreland. The driver of the Toyota Camry sustained multiple injuries and burns, according to Deputy Fire Chief Ralph Rider. The victim was transported by ambulance to Cabell Huntington Hospital. His condition was unavailable.

The name of the victim was withheld pending a report by Huntington police.

The fire caused extensive damage to the home of Gary “Music” Miller, former disc jockey at WKEE-FM for more than 30 years before losing his job at the radio station in 2009.

Miller was working on his computer in the back of his house when he heard something crash into the front of the one-story frame structure.

“We heard a huge boom,” Miller said. “It was like a bomb went off. I told (my wife) Kim that someone had hit our house. She was in the bedroom. She said the house was on fire.”

Before he left his burning house, he tried to find their dog, Missy.

“There were people at the door, telling us to get out,” he said. “I found (Missy) barricaded in the closet. I got her out.”

The Millers, however, couldn’t get to another pet, a bird, in the front part of the house.

”We’ve been having financial problems,” Miller said. “I lost my job in 2009. We don’t have any insurance. I don’t know where we’re going to stay tonight. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

He and his wife have lived in the house for more than 30 years.

“We lost our jobs and our car. (The house was) the last thing we have in the world,” Miller said.

Police and fire officials were unsure how the vehicle could have rammed into the front of the house. The homes in the neighborhood are close together, but the fire impacted only the Miller’s residence.

“The car was on fire either before it hit house or after it hit the house,” Rider said. “It will probably take a day or two to figure it out.”

Six Huntington Fire Department units responded to the fire, he said.

“It could have been a lot worse.”

“We’ve had accidents here before, but nothing like this,” said Sgt. S. M. Bowles of the Huntington Police Department. Police aren’t sure if the vehicle was traveling on Camden Road or U.S. 60 before it struck the house, he said.
 

[genlock]

“The car was on fire either before it hit house or after it hit the house,” Rider said. “It will probably take a day or two to figure it out.”

The fire chief said that.