Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Monday, October 19, 2009

Just Drop Right In

Nothing like dropping in unannounced. Worse, dropping into someone's house whom you don't even know. What a surprise. Like, who're you? But it could be worse.

Say, for example, someone driving a car, losing control of said car, and then somehow managing to steer it directly over your urban lawn, and right into a corner of your house. It's been done before, and although fairly upsetting, repairs to the home have been undertaken, the unheralded visitor charged, perhaps with dangerous driving, perhaps with driving under the influence.

What about if that person drove the car into the house, hitting a gas main? All that gas escaping; you'd want to alert the house-holders. Oh, what if it happened at four in the morning and everyone was sound asleep. Well, they wouldn't be sound asleep for very long after the impact, after all, would they be? But, if they were still unaware of precisely the kind of danger they were in, and did not move with the kind of alacrity that kind of situation demands?

Never fear, where there are teen-age kids living in a home, and one has a friend over for the night, they can be focused on things more important to teens than sleeping; say gaming? So they're awake and fully alert when they hear something really unusual appear to impact on the very building they're inhabiting, as it happens.

They dash over to the point of impact, one dials 911 on the ever-present cellphone, the other rushes over to the vehicle, now afire, assesses the situation, runs back indoors to rouse parents and siblings, urging they speedily vacate the premises.

The fire that ensued, and the attempts by firefighters ensured that no explosion did occur. But the damage to the home this family had lived in for 21 years was beyond extensive; the house could not be saved, nor their belongings. "Nothing like this has ever happened before", commented the lady of the house.

Guess not. Their quiet, tree-lined urban neighbourhood of bungalows and split levels wasn't much given to spectacular crashes obliterating a home and making a family homeless as result.

Damage has been estimated between $600,000 and $700,000, fairly substantial. That includes home and contents, and oh yes, two family vehicles. The woman of the house has a sense of humour, commenting, on hearing the smoke detector in the charred house beeping that it was reassuring that the battery was still fresh and the apparatus in working order.

The car driver was charged with impaired driving, driving with a blood alcohol level of over .08, and dangerous driving. He was injured, but not seriously.

Amazingly, the woman whose home had been destroyed charitably declared she felt no animosity toward the driver. "This was just a boy, a 21-year-old, and what a horrible thing for him - we could all be dead. It's probably the worst moment of his life. I don't feel angry. I feel sorry for him."

Oh. Dear. Me.

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