Driver Hits Chi O House at KU

[NutBrnHair]

A pickup truck driven by a 23-year-old crashed into a Kansas University sorority early Sunday, Lawrence police Sgt. Susan Hadl said.

The driver, whose identity has not been released, was flown by helicopter to a Kansas City area hospital. His condition was not available Sunday night. No one else was injured.

Hadl said police were called shortly before 2 a.m. to the 500 block of West 14th Street, near the Jayhawk Cafe and the Wheel Cafe, two bars popular with college students that are better known as the Hawk and the Wheel.

Ryan Delcotto, who was working as a bartender at the Hawk, said a man was using a hammer to break windows on vehicles near the Wheel. Delcotto said the man, whom he described as being in his 20s, also was threatening departing bar patrons in the area with a knife.

Police were called, and Delcotto said when they arrived the man drove away up 14th Street and onto Jayhawk Boulevard.

While traveling west on Jayhawk Boulevard, the truck ran into and over the cement barriers that protect a traffic control booth before being launched over the Chi Omega fountain and into the side of the Chi Omega house, said Jane Moseley, Chi Omega’s alumni adviser.

“The police officer told me the car was going 80 to 90 mph and went airborne,” she said.

Chi Omega’s former president, Mallory Hammersmith, was at the sorority when the accident happened and helped with notifying chapter advisers and other officers.

“A bunch of girls woke up because they felt the truck hit the house,” she said.

The pickup truck pierced the exterior limestone and cracked the interior wall, sending splinters and glass fragments throughout the south part of the house, chapter president Chelsie Harper said.

Harper said the rooms that were damaged are popular study areas, which, with finals coming up, will present an inconvenience.

“We’re going to have to compensate with other areas,” she said. “It’s one of those peculiar things, but it’s truly a blessing that no one was in that room when the accident occurred




source: LJWord.com