CLAREMONT — The driver who crashed his vehicle through a building in Claremont last week is the same man who struck a group of pedestrians with his vehicle at a New Year’s Eve event in the city six months ago.

Late Friday afternoon, Joshua Head, 39, was behind the wheel of his pickup on Pleasant Street when he collided with a vehicle in front of him, swerved left and crashed through a building near LaValley Building Supply.

A bystander’s nine-second video recording taken shortly after the crash shows a splintered hole that Head’s pickup punched through the side of the building and him standing outside in the rain dressed in a black T-shirt and black cargo shorts as a police officer and firefighter stand next to him.

“He went right through there. He’s lucky to be alive,” a voice off camera can be heard saying.

On Thursday, a dumpster was in the parking lot outside the building, the office and workshop of an awning and boat cover business named Canvas Shoppe. The hole in the side of the building had been boarded up.

Dave Tardiff, owner of Pleasant Street Furniture and Antiques, whose store is located near the crash site, said he was behind the counter when he heard what sounded like “a bomb went off” as Head’s pickup tore through the exterior wall of Canvas Shoppe across the street.

Turning to look out the window of his store, Tardiff said he saw the van that was struck by Head’s truck “accelerate” down Pleasant Street and “jump” onto a grassy area at the fork of Pleasant Street and West Pleasant Street.

Tire tracks in a grassy area show the van narrowly avoided a head-on collision with a utility pole.

Claremont police did not respond this week to questions about the status of the investigation into the incident.

Meanwhile, the mothers of two victims in the New Year Eve crash said their families are still dealing with the aftermath — physically, emotionally and financially.

In the New Year’s Eve incident, authorities did not pursue criminal charges against Head after a police investigation concluded that he “was experiencing a medical emergency during the accident,” according to a Feb. 10 Claremont police report.

In a brief phone interview on Wednesday, Maria Head, Josh Head’s mother, said the second crash “was proven to be a medical emergency, too ... absolutely,” before declining to comment further, citing advice of an attorney.

In the New Year’s Eve crash, Head’s pickup struck four people on Robert A. Easter Way, the entrance road into Arrowhead Recreation Area where people who were attending a fireworks show had parked.

Head “was parallel parked … and accelerated quickly” across Robert A. Easter Way and “struck numerous people” with his pickup, stopping when hitting a parked car “T-bone style,” according to the police report.

During the investigation, Head told police “that he remembers getting into the truck and that ‘everything went black’ until he was awoken to people trying to break the window” of his pickup and pull him out of the cab.

The police report does not specify the nature of Head’s “medical emergency.” Justin Martin, director of Claremont’s Parks and Recreation Department, told police that Head was at the community center earlier on New Year’s Eve watching a boxing event.

Martin told police that he “had a lengthy conversation” with Head that night about Head’s “past and a motorcycle accident many years ago.” Martin said he would have been “very surprised” if drugs or alcohol had played a role in Head’s accident at Arrowhead, the police investigator wrote.

Sarah Briney, the mother of one of the four people hit by Head’s pickup, said her 20-year-old daughter was watching the fireworks grand finale near her friend’s car in the parking lot and recalled “hearing a revving sound.” She blacked out and then came to “pinned underneath the passenger’s (side) tire of the truck,” Briney told the Valley News.

Her daughter had to “undergo two months of active physical therapy” to regain mobility and therapists believed she had reached the point of maximum recovery, although her daughter still has discomfort.

“They essentially told her that the pain she has in her ankle, knee, hip and lower back is just something that she’s going to have to ride the rest of her life at this point,” Briney said.

At first, the widespread assumption was that drugs or alcohol played a role in Head losing control of his vehicle but “when we learned that it is looking like a medical emergency, I felt empathetic,” Briney said. “I was giving grace in the situation because it could have been a heart attack, anyone could have, you know, it’s not with intent.”

But Briney questioned why Head was still on the road last week.

“So when Friday night’s incident happened — and it’s barely six months after New Year’s Eve — I’m wondering how is (Head) even able to drive at this point? What is even happening right now? That was a huge concern of mine because there have been now two significant accidents where five people have now had their lives forever affected by this one person ... my mind was reeling. Where did the clearance come from?”

Although the nature of Head’s New Year’s Eve “medical emergency” was not released by police, New Hampshire law requires a driver who suffers a medical event, such as a seizure, to be “seizure free” for a 12-month period before operating a motor vehicle again.

The period of time can be reduced if a physician certifies seizures are not likely to continue, according to the Northeast Regional Epilepsy Group.

The mother of another one of the New Year’s Eve victims provided a similar account of the incident.

Jaime Wiley said that her then-17-year-old daughter, her boyfriend and Briney’s daughter were all about to get into her daughter’s car when “all of a sudden out of nowhere” Head’s pickup shot forward. Her daughter and Briney’s daughter were pinned between the vehicles, which was also “thrown into” her daughter’s boyfriend who was on the opposite side.

A fourth victim, a 28-year-old male who was walking by, also got “picked up and pushed into the car,” according to Wiley.

Both Wiley’s daughter and Briney’s daughter were initially transported to Valley Regional Hospital in Claremont before they were airlifted to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon.

“Mostly she was in shock,” Wiley said of her daughter.

Two weeks later an X-ray revealed that Wiley’s left leg had been fractured in the incident. She was in a leg brace for six weeks and missed two months of work.

So far, Wiley said, Head’s insurance company has not compensated them for any of her daughter’s medical expenses, car repairs or missed work time.

“We’re told they are still trying to figure out whether or not it was preventable. We’ve had to pay all those expenses ourselves. It’s been a nightmare,” Wiley said.

Wiley also questioned why Head was back behind the wheel.

“Having gone through that building, he could be dead,” Wiley said. “It is just incredible, unbelievable, that this has happened twice in less than six months. I don’t know who’s dropping the ball, but I hope that he himself would think, ‘I don’t wanna kill someone, so I am not going to drive.’ ”

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com