annie scoops channel 5

.....but only if you read this before the morning news.

A little after 10 tonight, Nate and I had just gone to bed when we heard VRRROOOMMMM... CRASH!!

Nate: Did you hear that noise? What was that?

me: It sounded like somebody missed the road and hit a telephone pole.

Or the tree in our front yard, or my car which was parked in the alley instead of the garage because I couldn't find my garage door opener, or somebody's house -- I had no idea. I got out of bed to look around and see what had happened. Not the front yard, not the alley. I finally found it on the avenue that the alley opens onto, right at the end of the opposite alley (next block over from ours). By this time, suspiciously fast, at least three cop cars were there. I had heard sirens before I was even out of bed. I got back in bed, since I could more or less see the crash from the bedroom window. There was a car that seemed to be sideways in the alley, though I couldn't tell if it was up against the telephone pole or not. Nate said he saw smoke. A fire truck arrived, then two more cop cars, then an ambulance. A large group of people had gathered and was milling around the scene.

me: I bet it was a car chase. Why else would that many cops be here that fast?

Nate (bored): Well, the precinct headquarters is just down on Lake Street.

me: Yeah, but it took them less than 30 seconds to get here. I'm going to see what's going on.

So I put my shoes on and went down the alley to join the crowd of bystanders. The car hadn't hit the telephone pole; it was sideways across the alley with its front half smashed into someone's fence. The bystanders' tale is this: The guy driving the car was involved in a fender-bender on Lake Street somewhere. He fled the scene, stupidly, even though there were cops there who could see him. There are always dozens of cops on Lake Street, everybody knows that. Anyway, he sped off with the cops in hot pursuit, and decided to try and lose them in the narrow residential streets. He came barreling down our street (headed east), decided to turn right (south), accelerated into the turn (the VRROOOMM), completely biffed it, went through the backyard of the house on the southeast corner of the intersection and took out most of their nice white picket fence, WENT AIRBORNE, flew through the air over the alley and crashed nose-first into the backyard of the house on the south side of the alley.

The driver left the scene in an ambulance, on a board with a cervical collar. He did not lose consciousness, though -- Nate and I could hear him howling and swearing from inside our house as they put him on the board. I never saw him, as he disappeared into the ambulance while I was still looking for my shoes. But I spend all my days dealing with the consequences of people's car accidents, and people are often permanently disabled by much smaller crashes.

After a while the cops started to leave, and the bystanders began to wander back to their houses. The people whose yard the car had ended up in started picking up broken pieces of fence and throwing them into the open windows of the crashed car. The cops didn't stop them.

I left when a Channel 5 van showed up. Lots of us did, actually. Nobody wanted to be interviewed in their pajamas. If you are reading this before Thursday's morning news, turn it on, see what they've got. I'm sure the most exciting footage they could have is of the tow truck loading the wreckage of the car. The ambulance, the fire truck, and all but two cop cars were gone by the time Channel 5 arrived. I'd be interested to see what they have to say about the driver, though. Wonder what he was doing that made a fender-bender worth running from.