Instead of enjoying the day off of work, one North Texas mother, daughter and grand-baby were ducking for cover after a driver smashed into their living room then left.
The hit and run crash happened on the eastbound service road of Highway 67 and West Ledbetter Drive in Oak Cliff.
It’s not just the fence or the backside of the house that have been destroyed.
A family’s sense of security has too.
“When I look at this I think ‘God, did I still have my life,’” said Stephanie Wright. “I don’t understand.”
Wright says in the 17 years she has lived in her home her fence has been hit several times by drivers traveling too fast along the two-lane service road.
“They need to do something about this. Put in some guardrails or something,” she said.
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The latest incident happened at about 11:40 a.m. on Monday.
A car, believed to be a grey Hyundai given pieces recovered in the yard, was traveling down the curvy road in the rain.
“We heard [screech],” described Wright. “We didn’t know it was coming into the house.”
But it did.
Right into the living room.
“Here’s my fireplace where the car went through my fireplace,” she showed inside.
The impact was so big it knocked the fireplace out of its place and into the couch.
The coffee table glass popped up during the impact.
“I pulled the baby, she was in the bouncer, and I pulled her and started running,” she said. “My daughter, she started leaping off the couch and we were just trying to find safety. And the car backed out and kept going.”
The hit and run driver didn’t check to see if 15-month old Joy was hurt.
“I understand he may have been scared but the right thing to do is stop and see if everything’s ok and we can worry about the rest later,” said Wright’s daughter and the baby’s mother Jasmia Walker. “But now it just leaves one family to deal with it all.”
Wright says she ran outside to try and stop the driver who zigzagged down the road, disappearing out of sight.
Incredibly she says a woman drove up to the scene a short time later.
“And she said ‘it was my cousin that did this.’ And we were like: What,” Wright said. “’I told him to come back. I told them it was wrong that he needed to come back.’ He aint made it back yet.”
The family turned pieces of the car found strewn in the yard over to Dallas police.
Wright has a message for the driver:
“You have almost killed me and my family. Turn yourself in.”
The family called 311 and were told TxDOT would be in touch in the coming days.
