Too Close For Comfort

It's amazing how lucky some people are. It has been said that one of the reasons our job is so stressful is that we spend such a large percentage of our time dealing with the worst 1-2 percent of other peoples lives. This is true, we see hundreds of people at some of the absolute worst moments of their lives. But, I swear, we also see some of the luckiest people on the face of the planet. Maybe it's because we work in the realm of random chance and "accidents" and we see so much of it, but every fire, every car wreck (almost) could have been so much worse. We say our city lives under a white cloud because the fires that could have been disastrous never get to that point, the gunshot wound could have been an inch to the left, the pole could have come through the driver's side of the car. I'm sure every department believes the same thing about their city. We just see so many close calls.

We responded last night for a call from the police department to determine the structural integrity of a house that had been hit by a car. We see these from time to time. Someone fails to negotiate a curve or steps on the wrong pedal and smacks into someones house. Usually they are not too bad. Last night a car apparently doing donuts in the street lost control, crashed through a chain link fence, sped across the lawn, and took out the entire Southwest corner of the house. The car literally took out a space about three and a half feet high and 5-6 wall studs deep in both directions. It also knocked down a metal pole that came crashing through the living room window.




There were many amazing factors to this crash:

One: the car then backed up and drove away. The fact that it was drivable is amazing to me. Granted, it only made it a block and a half before being abandoned. Still....

Two: there was no collapse

And most importantly-Three: the thirteen year old girl on the bed in the bedroom the car drove through was unharmed! The car wound up at the foot of her bed and the headboard held up any wall collapse that would have landed on her.



Other than being understandably freaked out, the girl was fine. Had she been anywhere else in that room she would have ended up under that car or hit by debris. Instead, she just rolled off the other side of the bed and left the room.

Disaster for the house, yes. A really bad day for the family, yes. But from my perspective, just ridiculously, unbelievably lucky.

The police even picked up the drivers a few blocks away too.

(pictures not of the actual call)