Carolyn Beeler says she thought her worst fears about the train tracks near her fiancé Jeff Collier’s house on Hawkins Drive had come true Thursday night when they were awakened when a vehicle came crashing through their bedroom wall.
“He’s got train tracks behind the house, and I told him, I said ‘one day, I’m just waiting for this train to go through,’” Beeler said. “That’s what I thought it was, coming through the house.”
What actually broke through the wall was a semi-tractor trailer. The Elizabethtown Police Department says at around 4:15 a.m. on February 20 two semis slid off I-65 North, with one of them striking the home as they came to rest on Hawkins Drive.
“I was just shocked, because it threw me across the bed toward his side, and they asked me ‘did it knock me out?’ and I said I don’t know because I still feel weird to right now, my memory and stuff,” Beeler said. “I was just shocked.”
Beeler says she was treated at Baptist Health Hardin for whiplash, lower back pain, and sore ribs, and she says the damage to the house is catastrophic.
“Boards are sagging, the roof’s coming down, it pulled up flooring, the bricks are all broke up,” Beeler said. “I mean, it’s totaled.”
Beeler says she’s afraid without safety improvements the house could be in the line of fire again someday.
“They’ve got to do some barriers up there by that bridge, because they said about two years before he moved in, they had two cars come off of it, so they need to do something up there,” Beeler said.
Beeler and Collier are currently staying with friends and are waiting for insurance to evaluate the damage, but they are looking for storage space for their possessions not damaged in the crash.
