Vehicle crashes through LaPorte home, family looking towards next steps

NOW: Vehicle crashes through LaPorte home, family looking towards next steps
NEXT:
LA PORTE, Ind. -

If you think your alarm clock is an annoying wake up call, wait until you hear how one Michiana family woke up on Friday.

Their La Porte home is unrecognizable tonight after a Chevy Trailblazer drove directly into it just after 6 Friday morning.

Somehow everyone sleeping inside the home last night was untouched by all of the damage.

The driver though was taken to the hospital before he was transported to the La Porte County Jail.

The home on the 4000 Block of US 35 in La Porte sits barely recognizable Friday morning.

The destruction so severe, police are warning the family to sleep somewhere else.

According to the La Porte County Sheriff’s Office, 19-year-old Lincoln Steinhiser lost control of the grey Chevrolet Trailblazer, slid across three lanes of US 35 and crashed into the home’s yard, striking the southeast corner of the home, moving it at least a foot off of its foundation.

The homeowner, Mary Zapala, a La Porte great grandmother who still works at a nearby pizza shop has lived at the home with her husband for over four decades.

Now she doesn’t know when or even if he’ll sleep another night there again.

“I was in bed sleeping heard a great big thunk and then I heard glass breaking and everything my daughter comes running out saying someone just ran into the house got my coat out there’s a car into the house right there sideways,” said Zapala.

Steinhiser refused medical treatment at the hospital and is being charged with operating while intoxicated, resisting law enforcement and minor consuming alcohol.

Share this article: