Residents escape home moments after plane crashes into it
SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Patricia Kobalski and her son are staying in a local hotel ever since Sunday afternoon when a twin engine jet crashed into her home. She says she doesn’t know how she and her son survived.
"All of a sudden I hear like this loud explosion type sound, my first instinct was to run out and find out where my son was at,” said Patricia Kobalski.
Not much remains of the house where Kobalski and her 6-year-old son Dominick lived.
"I turned to look at the kitchen and then I saw rubble and stuff in the kitchen and I thought maybe he was in there. And then I heard him, so I turned real quick and grabbed him and we ran out,” said Kobalski.
It wasn't until Kobalski exited her home and saw the wing of the plane stuck in her roof that she realized what had happened.
After seeing her house again Monday the shock is just as fresh.
"We still haven’t processed it actually. I'm still shaking- I'm watching them tear the roof off and it's like, that's my house. I still can’t- I keep thinking when am I going to go back home? And it's like, I don't' have a home really,” said Kobalski.
Despite the devastating loss of her home and most likely many of her belongings, Kobalski is still grateful for her son’s safety.
"Just glad that someone was watching over us. Watching over him mostly because I mean if it, if the impact had been a little bit harder or at a different angle, he might not be here,” said Kobalski.
Kobalski said officials do not know the extent of the damage to her home, but it is likely that because the jet fuel has soaked into much of the house, she won't be able to recover many of her personal items.