Big excitement in the neighborhood last nigh ... er this morning. Here's the play by play. I woke up for some unknown reason at 12:45 am. Everything seemed quiet, but as I was staring into the hallway, I realized my new "power failure" night light in the bathroom was in "power failure mode". Power failure mode means that it switches from just being a normal night light to being a high powered practically blind a person flash light. So I thought, wow -- the power is off. I stared at the light for a couple of seconds -- and then decided there was no way I could go back to sleep with that on, so I shuffled into the bathroom and shut it off. Then I went back to bed and pretended that I was going to go back to sleep.
That lasted all of 2 minutes because I started to wonder --why the hell would the power go off? It's not storming out, no lightening, no tornadoes or gale force winds. What the heck? So I grabbed my cell phone, did a quick Internet search for the electric company and called in an outage.
The woman on call for the electric company was quite surprised that our power was out. "Are your neighbors out because I don't have an outage reported for your area," she asked me. "Yes," I replied. "Our yard light and the neighbors lights are out. They just went out suddenly." Why this doesn't make me think that someone just took out a pole near my house, I'll never know ... but she very nicely took my information and said she would notify a crew.
Then, about the time I hung up with her, I heard tires burning... like when you're stuck in the snow or on ice. So I walked over to my sister's bedroom and looked out the window. There was a car/truck sitting in my neighbor's driveway with the brake lights on. This gets my panties in a bunch because the neighbors are on vacation. This is an unofficial neighborhood watch area ... now I'm on alert for some shenanigans going on outside. I grab my heavy duty mag-light flashlight and head downstairs.
Funny that everyone on the first floor of the house is completely asleep. Even the dogs were knocked out. So I walk into my mother's bedroom and attempt to wake her up. Can I just say for the record that the woman that tries to act like she hears everything, doesn't wake up very quickly in the middle of the night?
So I'm standing at her window and I say: "Someone is over at Scott's house". She replies: "There's no one over there, I just looked 5 minutes ago." "Really?" I question her -- and clearly it's the sleep talking, because she was in a coma just a few seconds ago. "Was that before or after the power went out?" "What? The power is out?" That gets her up -- all the while mumbling something I couldn't understand.
I walk into the living room to look out the front window -- which I decided is fruitless because there is a half dead evergreen in front of the window blocking any good view. Mom and the dogs follow. Then after Mom stares out the window a few seconds she determines that the electric pole just south of our drive way is lying on the ground -- which explains why the power is out. And how she can actually see this is beyond me, because as you can see in my photo --it was damn dark out there.
So I pull the curtain open and shine the flashlight out the window and light up a guy standing in the middle of the yard. He was surprised to say the least and took off running. I'm guessing he was the driver. I announce to no one in particular that I'm calling the Sheriff because there's a guy running across the yard -- but, of course, by now have set my cell phone down somewhere in the darkness of the house, so my 911 calling is delayed by my fumbling search for it.
Before I can even find the damn phone, I notice 4 cars coming out of town, two of which have their spot lights on lighting up the neighborhood. The Farley cop and another vehicle with police on the door. So, because Farley only has one squad car and half a police officer, this tells me that some shenanigans are going on uptown because no law enforcement ever responses that fast in our 'hood.
Okay, so now that there are police on the scene, I feel safe to open the front door and let them know that I'm awake and can "give a statement" if I need too. The Farley officer notices me and comes right up to ask me some questions. I tell him that I caught someone in the front yard wearing a light colored shirt and saw him run south from the yard. I tell them this 3 times over the course of 30 minutes, but clearly they don't listen, because no one ever goes looking for the guy south of our house. And since I've graduated from the NCIS-CSI NY school of crime scene investigation ... I would have totally picked up on that info, considering the other officer (New Vienna police department) told me the vehicle was registered to someone in Farley. Running south would have told me that he was trying to get home ... to possibly drink some more, thereby forfeiting the DUI charge because his defense could be that he started drinking after the accident and only ran because he was scared.
After I give the officer my inital statement, I headed outside to inspect the damage and nearly walked into the pole that was lying in our front yard. It was really really dark out there! (Never mind that the New Vienna cop was lighting up the scene with his spotlight). I compared notes about what happened with my neighbor and we both watched as another drunk driver nearly ran into the New Vienna cop car ... because it's completely normal to hit the gas and speed up when you see flashing lights from a squad car blocking the road and a police officer standing in the middle of the road in a reflective vest waving at you to stop. Geezus! That dude should have been arrested too.
Anyway, after about 45 minutes of nothing going on -- except Raymond getting up and trying to surmise what is going on outside, from the recliner -- the sheriff's department shows up with the "dog" to search the backyards for the driver. Not to the south in the direction that I said he ran -- but just the backyard of our house and the neighbors house. And this brings to me another point where the police officer didn't listen to what I said. I told him that when I spotlighted the guy in the yard, he was down in what could technically be called the ditch -- and he was picking something up. I even pointed to where the guy was standing. When I told the officers this, they laughed and said it was probably the front grill of the car. So where do they take the dog to pick up the "scent"? Right in the middle of the yard where I was standing telling the officer my story!! So, whose scent was the dog tracking? Probably mine, which is why they didn't find any such guy in our backyard. I'm surprised the dog didn't run up the front steps to the door. Ha! that would have been funny. At least they searched through the shed in the backyard where my nephew and brother store their boats -- because I guess he could have hid in there ... although I doubt it. I'm pretty sure he was hiding in the neighbors camper that is parked just down the road a piece. Oh, and another thing ... my mother was quite concerned that the deputies might step in dog poop in the back yard during their search. Again, that would have been funny too .... and they probably could have gone back to the cop shop to bitch about it. To Ryan .... my nephew, the cop.
So using my crime scene investigation knowledge from the school of NCIS-CSI... here's my take on what happened.
Vehicle leaves the road south of our driveway. Check out the photo below: see where the electric pole is in this picture? About 20 feet in front of it is a orange stick -- which is almost even with the end of the white fence on the other side of the road. That's where he entered the ditch. You can see his tire marks through the ditch, which is about 60 feet, give or take a few. (probably more) (See the red garage south of the pole -- that's where, in my professional opinion, the driver was hiding.)
He impacted the pole here and clipped it off. The old pole is lying in the ditch to the right. The electric company -- god bless those guys --were here until 6 am putting the new pole in and getting us and the neighbor's power back on.
From here, it looks like he skidded sideways a bit through the ditch/front yard. He left his headlights and parking lights in the grass in the front yard...er ditch.
He impacted the mailbox as he "stopped" in their driveway.
So, while this was all exciting and kept me up half the night, it becomes a grim reminder to me that drinking and driving is completely stupid. I'm sure this person thought that running from the police was the smart thing to do ... but in the end, while they won't be able to charge him with a DUI -- he's going to get a bill from the electric company for the replacement of that pole and the overtime for the 5 guys that were out here all night to hook the power back up, the damage to our grass --even though technically it's the county ditch and the damage to neighbor's mailbox and whatever else he hit -- not to mention the towing bill and his car that is completely totalled. That's about $20 grand for a night's worth of drinking. Wow! I hope it was fun. It was certainly fun to watch it unfold on my end.
No comments:
Post a Comment