Car Crashes Into Home In Washington Heights
Updated 01/30/15 - 11:18 a.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A driver was seriously injured, and a South Side family was startled out of their beds, when the man crashed his car into a home in the Washington Heights neighborhood early Friday.
The crash happened around 1 a.m. at a home at the intersection of 107th and Peoria streets, obliterating much of the front porch of the 1 ½-story brick house.
The driver was heading south on Peoria Street, and failed to make a turn at the T-intersection with 107th Street, and crashed his Dodge Charger into the northwest corner of the house.
Five people were home at the time, but they were not hurt. The driver was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in serious-to-critical condition, but authorities said his injuries were not life-threatening.
"It looks real bad. It's damaged that front room; also to the closet, and it's looking pretty bad in the bedroom that he hit," homeowner Martha Richard said.
Richard's daughter-in-law, Lydia Aguirre, was in bed with her three children -- all under the age of 4 -- in the front room that was damaged in the crash, but they were at the other end of the room, so they were not injured.
"It was crazy. It was a big loud boom that shook the whole house," Aguirre said. "That's when I seen the wall coming in, and I went and grabbed my kids, took them in the front, and that's when I looked out the front door, and seen the car was inside the wall."
The force of the impact sheared the front bumper and radiator off the car, and the railing off the front steps of the home.
"I just thank God that we're all safe," Richard said. She said, if the car had hit the house just a few inches to the left, "it would have been right into my bedroom, the kids bedroom where they were lying, sleeping."
A fire department spokesman said the building's structural integrity likely was not compromised.
Police said the crash appeared to be alcohol-related. Charges were pending against the 39-year-old man who was driving.
