Not So Great Escape

Shortly before 11:00 a.m. on Monday, April 6, a female driver fleeing an accident on Eighth Street lost control of her late-model Ford Escape and nearly crashed into a house a couple blocks away.

John Hottel was at home in the 1200 block of Eighth Street when he heard a crash. By the time he got outside, he saw that a woman in a yellow Escape had just hit his neighbor’s silver Mazda and was driving away. He followed the hit-and-run driver on foot.

Two blocks away, Hottel came upon the Escape, stationary in the middle of the intersection at Ninth and Grove. Apparently, the SUV had jumped a curb and crashed into a block wall, coming to a stop just feet from an occupied home.

“[T]hen [she] put it into reverse before stalling it and her escape,” said Hottel as he waited to give sheriff's deputies his statement.

As I.B. firefighters cleared the home’s front room of broken glass and fist-sized chunks of concrete, a San Diego sheriff’s deputy assigned to traffic control said the female driver along with a child passenger were “...fine, just a little stunned. Luckily no one in the house was hurt.”

Edie Hunt, whose car was the first one hit by the Escape, looked at her car. “She caused very minor damage. Must have figured no one had seen her and took off. I wish I had gotten out here faster. Maybe I could have stopped her. She caused a whole bunch of grief.”