Bird-in-Hand Family Shocked When Car Strikes House
by Abraham Martin   4/11/09

  A local family was shocked and awed when a driverless car struck their house one winter evening. Details of this event are sketchy and some of the sources are less than reliable but it's true as far as birdinhandnews.com can tell.
  One evening an 18 year old Mennonite boy and his 14 year old sister were heading to a basketball game. They were late. They lived on a big hill in Upper Leacock twp. and their driveway snakes down a hill at an an angle where it meets Windy Tor Rd heading west. The boy wanted to go east so he turned onto a small turnabout on the opposite side of the road. The turnabout was covered with snow and the boy took the turn too wide and got stuck in the snow.
  He couldn't back up and he was afraid to go forward because there was a 10 foot drop into his mother's garden. The boy's father was out of town and the boy's mother was in the house preparing for company. Two miles away his brother sat twidling his thumbs. The girl went to the house to tell Mother but she was busy so the boy went down to his father's shop and drove out with a pickup truck. He didn't call his brother. He backed the truck up to the black maxima, took some junky little ratchet straps, and fastened them to the spoiler on his car.
  Then he put the car in neutral, put his sister in the car, and jumped into the truck. He drove slowly forward. It's unclear what the sister, who has never driven a car, was supposed to do in the car.
  The boy drove slowly forward. The straps ripped. The car moved slowly forward. It headed over the bank. At this point the girl jumped out.
  The car shot over the bank into the garden. But it didn't stop there. It went through a fence into the Amish neighbor's mule pen. The mules went running. But it didn't stop there. The car rolled through the mule pen, smashed a fence post, and continued down the hill across a cornfield.
  The car picked up speed on the snowy hillside. It careened between two trees and smashed into the peaceful homestead below.
  The boy and girl watched in horror as their means of transportation rolled away. The boy had no comment. The girl said, "It was nuts."
  In the house below a young man and woman and their two children were quietly going about their business when they heard a loud crash outside. They quickly ran outside to see a black Maxima resting against their porch. Steam was coming from the hood. 
  No one was in the car so they quickly called 911 and reported a possible hit and run with possible injured people lying above the house. "I didn't know if they fell out of the car or if they hit our house and then ran so I called both the ambulance and the cops," the young man said shaking his head. Days later he was clearly still shaken by the whole thing.
  Police and ambulances descended upon the quiet country road, looking for possible runaways and injured people lying in fields. They found none. In a scene reminiscent of Witness, Amish men and boys came walking across the fields to see what the commotion was. One unnamed Amish man said, "I was at home reading The Plain Interests when I saw all these christmas lights so I put on my boots and came out to see if I could help."
  Meanwhile the Mennonite boy parked the truck in the shed and went up to tell his mother what happened. At this point the company, which included the boy's pastor, was arriving at the house. The boy and his mother went down to the neighbors to tell them who was to blame for the whole thing.
  When the cops found out there was no runaway on the loose they were dissapointed and a few of them gave the boy a talking to about safety. The boy vowed never to repeat his actions.
  When the boys father heard about the whole situation he almost had a heart attack and then bought the boy a much junkier car than the black Maxima. 

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Comments:

The young Mennonite girl wrote:
  The story is good but I did not say it was nuts. 

The Childrens mother wrote:
  The neighbors are now building a moat