I grabbed a phone and dialed 911 who answered immediately and then I watched as the driver began to walk up the street with one shoe in his hand, the other on his foot.
I was impressed with how quickly the neighbors mobilized. Someone brought out orange cones to put around the crashed truck, a couple of other people began directing traffic and others went after the driver who was either in shock or escaping a crime scene.
Fire rescue arrived within minutes but it took longer for the Highway Patrol to arrive (they patrol a large area). I had reported that the driver was headed toward town and two CHP cars arrived, each coming from opposite directions, ostensibly to locate the driver.
Rob went out and started taking pictures and he reconstructed the accident scene for me. The guy must have been traveling at a high speed and missed a curve at the bridge about a block from us. He bounced off a mailbox 3 doors down, careened across the street and hit a parked car and a trailer before spinning around and stopping in the opposite lane of traffic. The impact pushed the parked car over a neighbor's fence. Those neighbors weren't home so they'll have a surprise waiting for them when they get back.
After hitting the mailbox, the tires on the passenger side blew out and the wheels reamed a line in the asphalt as the truck skidded into the parked car, knocking it through the fence.
The paramedics discovered that the driver had quite a lot of alcohol on board.
Commentary overheard at the scene, "He said he was trying to avoid hitting a car but all the cars were parked."
So once again, our quiet little community has been rocked by crime. The driver could have killed himself, an innocent person or someone's pet, but I don't think it would have bothered him much. He had this bumper sticker on the back of his truck.
