Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Traffic troubles continue for local couple

Ross Getchel watches video of Monday's
crash Tuesday morning. Click to enlarge.
Photo by Heather L. Smith. 
AURORA | Ross and Kathrin Getchell’s tough luck with wayward motorists continued Monday when a driver slammed into the side of their house, leaving a gaping hole in the bricks and knocking down their fence. 


The Monday afternoon crash wasn’t the first time a driver lost control near their home at the corner of Baranmoor Parkway and Ursula Street, but the crash was the first time a driver slammed into the house. 
In the past, drivers have crashed on the sidewalk and once a car slammed into a tree in the Getchells’ front yard. 

“After about 40 years here, we’re deciding about whether we’re going to stay,” Getchell said. “We’re not sure anymore.”

There have been more than a dozen accidents at the intersection in far north Aurora since the Getchells moved there in the 1970s, Getchell said.

Usually, the accidents are caused by motorists who take the curve on eastbound Baranmoor too fast and lose control. 

But Monday’s cash wasn’t like the previous accidents. 

This time, a woman driving a Subaru wagon was headed north on Ursula when she stopped at the yield sign to make a right onto eastbound Baranmoor. After she made the right turn, the woman kept turning right and accelerated, slamming into the north side of the Getchell home. 

The Getchell’s have surveillance cameras set up on their home that caught the bizarre crash from start to finish. 

Luckily, the couple was in the living and not their bedroom at the time of the crash.  
Kathrin Getchell said she often sleeps in her bed around that time of day, but opted not to Monday. 

“If I had been in my bed I would have been killed,” she said. 

The front end of the Subaru ended up inside the Getchell’s’ bedroom, splitting the drywall and mangling the head board on their bed. 

The driver of the Subaru, who Getchell said police cited, didn’t appear to be injured in the crash, either.

Police on Tuesday did not immediately return for comment on the crash. 

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