Suspected drunk driver slams into school

[Sci-Fi]

From the Austin-American Statesman:



25-year-old man suffers minor injuries in major damage to Wells Branch Elementary School
By Jonathan Osborne and Bob Banta

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, May 30, 2002

Just beyond the 8-by-12-foot gaping hole in Wells Branch Elementary School is where Travis County sheriff's deputies say a drunken driver crashed his Lincoln Town Car at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Deputies plowed through the rubble and found Andy Ruiz lounging in the back seat of his car with his feet propped up, talking to his wife on a cell phone.

They took the 25-year-old Austin resident to Brackenridge Hospital, where he was treated for minor injuries. He was then booked into the Travis County Jail and has been charged with driving while intoxicated, evading arrest and driving with a suspended license. No one else was hurt in the crash. School officials said as many as six classrooms at the school, which is located on Merrilltown Drive near the corner of Bratton Lane, were either destroyed or severely damaged.

"Honestly, we're just grateful that no one was hurt and that this occurred in the middle of the night when no one was there and that he crashed into an empty building and not the homes across the street," said Cathy Brandewie, a spokeswoman for the Round Rock Independent School District.

Sheriff's department spokesman Roger Wade said the incident started when deputies noticed the Town Car speeding southbound in the northbound lane of Bratton.

The car swerved off the road, narrowly avoided a head-on collision and stopped on the shoulder.

As deputies approached the parked vehicle, it sped away. Wade said that by the time deputies caught up with it, the car was inside a fourth-grade classroom on the northwest side of the school.

Brandewie said classes ended last week and the building won't be needed until July 15, when 75 students will begin summer school.

"If all the repairs are not done by that time, the kids can be moved into another part of that building," she said.

Brandewie said the district does not know how much the repairs will cost, but the school's maintenance director, Les Reddin, said they should be done before the first day of school on Aug. 20.

Workers were busy Wednesday morning excavating red bricks, insulation, wallboard and twisted metal support columns from the crash site. Yellow tape kept onlookers about 50 feet from the jagged opening.

Reddin said the vehicle plowed through the entire width of a classroom and came to rest in the hallway of the wing. The crash set off the school's sprinkler system, which caused water damage to at least four other classrooms.

The crash also led to a ceiling collapse in a neighboring classroom.

Wreckers pulled the car out of the building Wednesday morning.

"We got lucky in some respects," Brandewie said. "And certainly the driver got very lucky."

[Nova69]

Geez! That guy must have been FLYING!!

[MX-5]

Was that the same Lincoln that was hauling 7 unbelted children 2 days ago in another thread?

[jnicholson]

maybe he pulled into the school to LEARN something...What a knucklehead! Drinking and driving......It's like playing Russian Roulette! We can always build another school It's the guy who needs (brain) fixing

[Juicy]

D & D does suck...