A college couple in Nevada miraculously survived with minor injuries when a drunk driver drove a car right through the wall of their house and onto their bed last week. They lay pinned to their mattress for about an hour until emergency workers showed up with chainsaws and released them. The accused, Eric Cross, had mistaken their house for one belonging to his ex-girlfriend and her new mate. An excerpt from CNN:
Initially, Woods struggled to comprehend what had happened to him after being abruptly torn from his slumber."I thought the roof caved in from an earthquake because it's an old house," Woods said.
Then, his girlfriend began screaming and parts of the car came into focus, helping Woods to groggily piece the scene together,
"I could see the tire to the right side and I was like, there's a car on top of me right now," he said. "That was really hard to get through my head."
Couple alive after car pins them to bed for almost an hour
Image: Sparks Fire Department
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An HOUR?? Where in Nevada was this, the absolute middle of nowhere?
I like how the link is careful to clarify that a car allegedly drove into the bedroom.. in spite of several pictures showing a car IN THE BEDROOM.
Sparks, NV. I was once told that Reno is so close to Hell, you can see Sparks...
"...after a drunk driver allegedly tore into their home..."
"...when a motorist allegedly drove into their bedroom..."
So that's an alleged picture of an alleged car on their alleged bed?
Allegedly, yes.
Well, I suppose it's technically possible that the car just totally malfunctioned and crashed into the bedroom all by itself with no input from the driver. Or that the drunk guy wasn't actually the driver.
Not bloody likely, but technically possible.
"The accused, Eric Cross, had mistaken their house for one belonging to his ex-girlfriend and her new mate."
Ah, I see, he drove through the wrong wall. He though he was driving onto his ex-girlfriend's bed.
I am offended by the wording of this article. It SHOULD read:
"The accused, Eric Cross, had ALLEGEDLY mistaken their house..." How do you expect people to take the story seriously if you don't have the word 'allegedly' in it at least three times?
This man should never be allowed to drive again. In fact, anyone who drives drunk should be permanently banned from driving.
Never in a bazillion years would I imagine these thoughts were possible while laying in bed: "I could see the tire to the right side and I was like, there's a car on top of me right now." Of course, sleeping on the 2nd floor (or higher) for decades has probably left me complacent.
Most awkward threesome ever.
That girlfriend sure knows how to pick 'em.
Perhaps for the best the couple got pinned to the bed. Avoids awkward forensics afterward.
"Severe head trauma to the drunk driver you say? Must have been from the impact with the steering wheel? Steering wheel untouched, you say? How odd..."
dculberson, the BB writeup is a little unclear on this point. It didn't take an hour for the emergency workers to arrive. It took 15 minutes for them to arrive and 45 to free them safely.
Since this drive intended to do this to his ex and her new guy, why wasn't he charged with attempted murder? It was just luck this couple survived.
This guy watched "Crash" from the entirely wrong perspective.
That said, this has Gordon Matta-Clark's fingerprints all over it.
And that... was how Sparks, Nevada's latest and greatest crime-fighting duo was born!
Wow. I can't imagine how surreal and life-changing that must have been for the two survivors. The bad part is that the driver, despite being a hateful, dangerous moron, will probably get away with a few months in jail and some fine because the couple didn't actually die.
This exact thing happened in my neighborhood when I was about 9 or 10 years old. It was the house at the end of my block, I think. The driver wasn't drunk if memory serves he was in diabetic shock. Unfortunately, the people in the house didn't survive...Imagine being killed in a car accident while peacefully sleeping in your bed at home. Yikes!
This happened to my brother-in-law's parents in Mississippi a year or two ago. They weren't injured; the truck went through the wall but didn't pin them. Woke them up and scared the hell out of them, though. The driver had an empty bottle of liquor and, if I recall correctly, an under-21 female passenger with him.
MMM...there goes my last argument against cuddling,
No wonder she dumped him.
"The accused, Eric Cross, had mistaken their house for one belonging to his ex-girlfriend and her new mate."
I guess he could be accused of attempted murder then, not "just" a dui. This was no accident.
I'm also wondering why he's not being charged with attempted murder. What an asshole.
The story is contradictory; the EMTs arrived about 15 minutes after the crash and it took them about 42 minutes to get the car off them. Click the story link and scroll down.
Why do Americans tolerate the utterly flimsy plasterboard walls that are the de facto standard in this country?
If you go to Europe, masonry is the standard. Bricks, cinderblocks: you know, REAL construction materials. Which have the advantage of lasting a lot longer. And being a lot harder to drive through.
This kind of epitomizes America's myopic preoccupation with short-term cost savings versus long-term investment.
Why do Americans tolerate the utterly flimsy plasterboard walls that are the de facto standard in this country?
Among other reasons, because they don't fall down in earthquakes and crush everyone in the vicinity.
I drove drunk once.
I was sitting at a bar drinking with some friends when I got a phone call stating my best friends dad had died. I'd known the man since I was 7 years old. I called my friend and he said it would mean a lot of I came up and saw him (we lived in different towns). I spent an hour getting back to my house on public transport, another hour preparing and eating some food to lessen the effects of the alcohol in my system (apparently pointless but doesn't food always make you feel less drunk?) then I headed off to see my friend.
I got pulled over about halfway for a random breath test. Lost my licence and fined quite a bit. I was a bit drunk, very emotional and certainly it could have ended much worse than it did.
I'm certainly glad you were not in charge of my future in this regard though.
Weatherboard has a huge number of advantages (and disadvantages) over masonry, bricks, etc.
There is the earthquake point that Antinous made, there is also the fact that weatherboard is more flexible so if you're living in an area where the ground shifts due to environmental reasons (drought, etc) then you're not going to get massive cracks in your walls nearly as often.
If you're somewhere where the climate gets hot for months at a time brick or masonry is often bad because once it's hot it's damn hard to get it to cool back down. Brick houses may stay cool for a day or so longer to begin with, but they won't cool down over night like a weatherboard house would.
They are extremely lucky to have survived.