Montgomery County Sheriff’s deputies are continuing their search for the driver of a vehicle that smashed through a Fleetwood Drive home in Harrison Twp. on Tuesday afternoon. Here’s the latest:
- A grandfather, sitting with his grandson when the vehicle hit, remains in a hospital
- The 8-year-old has been released from Dayton Children's Hospital
- The vehicle ripped through the home while trying to flee from deputies
UPDATE (Aug. 15):
The grandfather remains in a hospital, recovering from head and neck injuries, his brother-in-law, Bruce Bruce, said Wednesday.
“They were sitting on the couch. And the car came through the front door and they both sound like they rolled with the couch. They got a lot of bumps and bruises and scars,” Bruce said of the grandfather and grandson.
“He said he was under the car. I don’t know whether he was or not, but when they found him he was under the truck so — he is really blessed to have the minor injuries that he has.”
Bruce said the 8-year-old was released from Dayton Children’s Hospital on Tuesday night and is with family.
THE INVESTIGATION: ‘To flee... is unacceptable’
Montgomery County Sheriff's deputies are looking for the person who hit the man and child when he drove through the house in the 4000 block of Fleetwood Drive, while trying to avoid detectives working a drug surveillance detail, Chief Deputy Rob Streck said Tuesday afternoon.
"We have many detectives out, many marked cars out," he said. "For someone to flee after an incident like this is unacceptable. So, we're going to be working extremely hard to find out who did this and bring them to justice."
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Streck said the preliminary investigation lays out this way:
Deputies were watching vehicles and suspected dope houses in the neighborhood as part of an investigation based on citizen's complaints.
A vehicle fled from an attempted traffic stop about 3:12 p.m. Deputies did not pursue the vehicle, hoping that detectives could get eyes on the vehicle again because it was easy to spot. A citizen flagged down deputies to tell them a vehicle had been driven through the house on Fleetwood.
"At that point they realized it was the vehicle they had tried to stop earlier," Streck said. Deputies believe the driver was speeding, preoccupied, didn't make a turn and hit the house.
Streck said, "We believe they were sitting on the couch, or at least in the area in the living room that the vehicle went through."
EYEWITNESS: ‘I don’t want to see anything else like this’
Next-door neighbor Ashley Dale, who went to check on the victims after witnessing the incident, said, "Somebody ran a stop sign and ran into my neighbor's house."
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Dale said the man and child were watching a movie when the vehicle ripped through the house. She said a young man jumped out of the vehicle and ran through the backyard.
"It's very shocking and I'm very upset about it. I'm very freaked out about it," she said.
Dale said she has never seen anything like what she saw.
"I don't want to see anything else like this," she said.
We will update this developing report. Stay with whio.com for breaking news.
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