Sunday Morning Excitement

Victoria, Jackson, and I were leaving for church this morning about 10:30. Marissa was staying home finish getting the house ready for a birthday party we're hosting this afternoon for Marissa's niece. Just as we were pulling out of the garage, Marissa came out and gave Jackson one more kiss, delaying us for about 30 seconds. Then, just as I backed into the street, there was a huge BOOM! and I looked off to my right and saw all the power lines shaking and a plume of smoke coming up from the entrance of our neighborhood, about 150 feet down the street.

Marissa yelled for us to stop, so I pulled back into the driveway, put the car in park, and ran down the sidewalk while I was dialing 911 on my cell phone. I was trying to not get too close since I didn't know why there was so much smoke, but the 911 operator kept asking me questions about who was inside, were they hurt, did I think an ambulance should be called. By this point I could see that it was a single pickup truck that had crashed through the decorative brick wall at the front of the subdivision.


The airbags had gone off inside the truck and the lady inside was acting very dazed and confused. I told the operator that to be safe they should probably send some paramedics and I finally got them off the phone. We were trying to get the lady to sit down, but she kept getting back into the truck and even tried to crank it at one point. I finally had to get a little stern with her, and managed to keep her from trying to get in the truck anymore, but she kept walking around picking up pieces of the wall. We tried to get her to stop doing that as well, but eventually gave up and let her move pieces of the wall around.


There's a big, sharp curve in front of our subdivision, and it's posted at 20 m/h, but there's no way she was going that slow. She basically missed the curve completely and plowed into the wall. When the truck hit, it sent pieces of the wall flying about 30 feet or more into our neighbor's house. It broke their window and knocked the chimney off-kilter. Even as I write this, the truck is still sitting in the wall. The power company had to come cut the guide wires for the pole she just missed, since they are wrapped inside the front end of the truck.


Notice the rebar in the concrete she punched through, which is laying about 10 feet away from the front of the truck. Yet she still claims she wasn't speeding.