Ann Leblanc’s ceramic cherubs flew off shelves in her prized “no touch” living room early Saturday morning.
A silver Subaru had sheared a telephone pole in half across the street and careened into the side of the grandmother’s brick home at 2904 S. Zurich Court at 5:10 a.m.
The force of the collision pushed her living room wall back 3 feet, puncturing a steel girder. Denver firefighters had to prop up the sagging roof with 4-by-4 boards.
The car came within 3 feet of the bed where her 14-year-old grandson was sleeping in a bedroom next to the living room.
“If the guy wouldn’t have hit the telephone pole, he would have gone straight through the house,” said Brian Shobert, Leblanc’s son-in-law. “It must have gone airborne and slammed into the front of the house.”
No one in the house — including Leblanc’s 3-year-old grandson — was hurt.
After the crash, Leblanc came screaming into the bedroom of the 14-year-old boy, who was still half-asleep.
“He was like, ‘What just happened?’ ” Shobert said.
When the Subaru came to rest perpendicular to the house, balancing on the driver’s side door, the bleeding driver climbed up and out of the passenger-side window and ran from the scene. His whereabouts are still not known.
Police have not yet identified the driver, said Sonny Jackson, Denver police spokesman.
“The driver must have been going at a high rate of speed, based on the damage that was done,” Jackson said. Accident reconstruction experts will determine the speed of the car at the time of the crash, he said.
The cherubs in Leblanc’s living room were shattered, and bricks and pieces of plaster littered the ground outside.
“It was basically her view-only room,” Shobert said. “It’s a mess.”
Leblanc was so unraveled by the accident that she had to get away. She went shopping for baby clothes for another grandchild, Shobert said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
