Charges are pending against the driver whose car burst through the family's living room late Thursday night.
A Honda Sedan ended up completely inside a house on the 3500 block of west 78th place around 10 p.m. The homeowner and her granddaughter had gone to bed - narrowly avoiding being hit by the car, which smashed through the living room and into the kitchen.
Just minutes before impact, the homeowner and her granddaughter had gone to bed - narrowly avoiding being hit by the car.
“We hear like a boom inside and we thought,” neighbor Flor Acosta said. “First thing we thought maybe a gas leak or something.”
The homeowner said she had a bad feeling something like this would one day happen. It sits right at the end of a quarter-mile straightaway with no speed bumps that neighbors say is very dark at night and not very well-marked.
“There is no sign indicating it is a cross, not a 4-way,” neighbor Joel Atwood said. “So...Sign might help.”
There is a 20-mile per hour speed limit, but police say this driver was going much faster.
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“The amount of damage and placement of the vehicle within the residence, it's quite obvious that the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed,” Merrillville Police Department Cmdr. Jeff Rice said.
Charges are now pending against the driver -- a man police say has been arrested before. His female passenger was taken to the hospital just as a precaution.
Fortunately, neither of the two people in the home were hurt.
“They made an apprehension of the driver and transported to Lake County jail. They believe alcohol to be involved in the case,” Rice said.
