A couple were taken into custody in Fort Wayne, Indiana, after driving from a liquor store with their children strapped to the hood of the car with a tow strap.
Aaron Stefanski, father of three of the children and the driver of car, thought that it would be fun for the children to ride on the hood of the car. Jessica Clark, the parent of the fourth child allegedly assisted him with strapping the children the car.
The children, ages four, five, six and seven appeared unharmed and were quoted in the local paper as saying they agreed to do it because it sounded like fun.
Stefanski, 29, has been charged with neglect of a dependent, operating a vehicle while intoxicated and four counts of criminal recklessness. Clark, 29, has been charged with neglect of a dependent.
Child Protective Services is investigating possible child neglect.
A motorist felt a little foolish when he had to call Austrian police to report his car had been hijacked – by a goat.
Gunther Hauser was forced to brake as he drove trough the countryside in Radkersburg, Austria, after coming face to face with an escaped goat on a remote road.
As 45-year-old Hauser tried to chase the goat away, it doubled back and jumped into the car.
Despite the pleadings of Hauser, the goat refused to budge and it began eating his car seats.
He eventually walked to a local farm but was then chased off as a suspected burglar.
At his wits end, he finally called the police. They rounded up local farmhands to remove the ram and take him back to his nearby enclosure.
“I had to take a picture of the goat because my insurance company would never have believed me,” he said later.
An 18-year-old unidentified woman from Colorado who survived a fiery crash in her sport utility vehicle told police that she lost control and struck a tree … after being distracted by fluttering moths.
According to a police blotter entry, the woman was driving her GMC Denali in Colorado Springs on Tuesday when she veered off the road and crashed.
As gasoline poured from a ruptured fuel line, passing motorists pulled her out of the driver’s side window before the car burst into flames.
The woman suffered only minor injuries and told investigators that she had been distracted by miller moths flying around inside the SUV, police said.
“Drugs or alcohol were not determined to be factors in the accident,” a police spokesman said. There was no immediate word on how many moths were in the vehicle.
Miller moths, the adult stage of army cutworms, take flight by the millions each spring when they emerge from the alfalfa and wheat fields of western Kansas, eastern Colorado and other plains states.
The gray or light-brown moths, which have a wingspan of 1.5 to 2 inches (3.8 to 5 cm), pass through Colorado’s urban corridor as they migrate west to feed on the nectar of wildflowers in the Rocky Mountains during the summer months.
Those moths that survive predators, including birds, bats and bears, return to the plains in the fall.
Police say two Pennsylvania teenage girls who fell asleep while sunbathing on a rural road have been struck by a car.
The Beaver County Police Department reported that 13-year-olds Samantha Schermanhorn and Kaylie George were hit by the vehicle Sunday afternoon.
Two of Samantha’s cousins say that their 19-year-old brother had stopped at a stop sign and made a turn before striking the girls with his car.
Nicole and Nicholas Beck say the girls were conscious and told them that they had fallen asleep while suntanning. The cousins say their brother was questioned by police after the crash.
The girls were airlifted to a hospital. Officials with the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh tell the station that the girls are in fair condition Sunday night.
On Tuesday, Jonaya Peterson was almost run over by a suspected drunken driver inside a Connecticut convenience store.
The Waterbury woman shared her frightening ordeal.
“I just heard a loud boom and it just happened so fast, I had no time to react to that,” she said.
She was standing at the counter inside the 7-Eleven on Cooke Street on Monday night when a black Ford Explorer slammed into the store, and almost ran her over. There was no way to prepare for what happened.
“Very shocking. I didn’t know what to do. I was just standing there. It was so unreal,” Peterson said.
Surveillance cameras inside the store captured the scare. Peterson didn’t know how close of a call it actually was until she saw the dramatic images.
“Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed. Peterson said she actually planned to check out at the register, where the car eventually crashed, and changed her mind at the last second.
“I think I’m very lucky. My angels were looking over me because, after seeing that video – it’s hard to watch,” she said.
Peterson was buying a lottery ticket when Kennedy Dowdell ploughed through the glass and struck Peterson in the back, police said.
“I just know I felt that sharp pain, and I got pushed against the register,” she said.
Then she noticed the threat wasn’t over, so she jumped on the counter to get out of harm’s way.
Dowdell put the car in reverse, backed out of the store and fled, according to police.
“I’m pretty mad because, never in a million years would I imagine that would happen to me,” Peterson said.
Waterbury Police tracked down Dowdell a short time later on Hill Street after a store clerk recognized him.
When police asked Dowdell to take a sobriety test he said, “I ain’t taking no test. I’m drunk and I know I will fail the test,” according to court documents.
Dowdell faced a judge in Waterbury on Tuesday about the charges of third-degree assault, operating under the influence and other charges.
“Within the last year, he (Dowdell) just got back from serving two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. What you’re going to see here is young men make mistakes,” his attorney, Donald Papcsy, said.
A motorist in Switzerland had a very lucky escape after his car smashed through a bridge barrier and ending up hanging over a busy motorway.
Andreas Rothstein, 25, who had another passenger with him in the car, lost control of the vehicle and smashed through a crash barrier.
But instead of falling 20 feet to the road below, the car became wedged in the hole, following the accident near the village of Urdorf, Zurich.
A police spokesman said: “There were two people nearby who witnessed what happened and rushed over and held onto the car while the two inside scramble onto a back-seat and out through a window.
“They had a very lucky escape – it could have fallen over at any time.”
Firemen were able to pull the car safety although the road below was closed for two hours. Police said Rothstein may face dangerous driving charges.
