COLUMBIA, S.C. — A family is left picking up the pieces with a hole in their house following a crash after a police chase in Richland County.
Felicia Ross says Friday is a day she'll likely never forget. The Columbia mother was at work when she received a phone call from her daughter about a car that had run into their house.
According to the Richland County Sheriff's Department, the car ended up in her house after a police chase. In a statement to News19, the department said that:
Late Friday night, deputies attempted to stop a stolen vehicle. The driver refused to stop and led deputies on a chase. Deputies lost sight of the vehicle but were flagged down a short time later and told the vehicle they were chasing had crashed into a house in the 1800 block of Saint Michaels Road. The driver ran from the crash. Deputies and K-9 units responded and searched the area but did not find the suspect(s). South Carolina Highway Patrol responded and will investigate the collision.
Ross said her father was sitting in their front yard and narrowly avoided being hit. She said the force was enough to knock her daughter onto the floor.
"She fell out the bed, it scared her, it was a big major impact, even my neighbor said she was startled, she ran out the door," she said.
On Sunday, there were still tire marks in her yard from the car, evidence of the speed. The hole is still apparent from houses away. Ross said the damage is internal too.
"It has cracked the inside of my bedroom where it has a big crack; the window is busted out in the bedroom - it's shattered," she said. "It knocked some things down, like my TV upstairs, from the impact as well."
Ross said the chase through her neighborhood has her worried about the safety of her family and neighbors.
"We have a little boy a couple of feet away from my house; we have another young boy, about seven years old, that's next door - he's always playing. We have a couple more kids up the street always playing," Ross said. "My daughter has a 10-month-old in here as well, so, yes, I'm very traumatized."
She adds that the next step is getting repairs and working with her insurance agency to fix things.
If you have any information on this incident, you're encouraged to call Crime Stoppers at 1-888-CRIMESC.