Accident (323/365)

Accidents, and particularly street and highway accidents, do not happen - they are caused. 

Ernest Greenwood (Romanian-American, Professor of Social Welfare, Emeritus, Berkeley, 1910–2004)

TIME:  9:58 PM
PLACE:  Across the street
SUBJECT:  Overturned vehicle

Around 9:45 I hear a loud "boom, boom" and the house shook.  My first thought was that someone ran the stop sign and hit HH's car that is parked in front of the house.  I go outside and see that a vehicle has crashed on the side of my neighbor's house and is lying on the driver's side.  I dial 9-1-1 and go outside to see if the person is ok.  Other neighbors are there as well.  They are able to get her out through the rear of the car and had her sitting in the street.  I went back inside and got a blanket to cover her until the ambulance arrived.  Her cousin was following her and speaking with her on a cell phone(!) and said that the driver told her that the brakes were not working.  The car ran up a lawn, damaged a porch, came back down into the street and then went between a stop sign and a fire hydrant and clipped my neighbor's brick house (which was 4 houses away from the 1st house she hit!), ran into their air conditioner unit and somehow flipped and landed on its side.  Several police units, the fire trucks and the ambulance arrived on the scene.  They took her to the hospital and the truck was towed away.  I do hope that she is ok.  I also hope that the accident was caused by faulty brakes and not because she might have been under the influence.  Why am I feeling so cynical about it though?