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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.

A Hardin County man is in custody after he allegedly struck two men changing a tire on the Bluegrass Parkway, killing one, and fled the scene.

Jason T. Hamilton of Rineyville faces multiple charges including Vehicular Homicide When Under the Influence of Alcohol, Leaving the Scene of an Accident, and Fourth Degree Assault following the incident Friday.

According to Kentucky State Police Post Four, at around 11 p.m. on February 21 troopers responded to a call from Nelson County Dispatch requesting the KSP investigate after a pedestrian was struck near the 13-mile marker on the Bluegrass Parkway.

The KSP says the preliminary investigation indicates that Nelson Pacheco Jr. of Cicero, Illinois, was changing a tire on a vehicle in the westbound emergency lane of the parkway. 20-year-old Amari Mays-Clark of Frankfort was standing near the rear driver’s side bumper when a vehicle driven by Hamilton crossed the fog line and struck Mays-Clark and Pacheco. The vehicle then continued without stopping.

Mays-Clark was declared dead at the scene by the Nelson County Coroner’s Office. Pacheco was transported to Baptist Health Hardin with non-life-threatening injuries.

The KSP says Hamilton turned himself into police several hours after the incident. He was lodged in the Nelson County Detention Center, where he is being held on a $500,000 cash bond.

The accident closed the westbound lanes of the Bluegrass Parkway for several hours during accident reconstruction. The KSP’s investigation remains ongoing.

Emergency responders Thursday night made a rescue in Elizabethtown.

“At around 10:30 p.m. Thursday evening, we along with the Elizabethtown Fire Department and Hardin County EMS responded to the report of a disabled vehicle in the floodwater on Hawkins Drive,” said Elizabethtown Police Department Public Information Officer Chris Denham. “When our officers arrived, we determined a vehicle occupied by two adults and a juvenile drove around the high water barrier and into the flood water which was several feet deep, causing their vehicle to become disabled. Using water rescue techniques, the fire department assisted the occupants from the vehicle without further incident.”

Denham said given the frigid temperatures the situation could have been much worse without the quick efforts of emergency responders.

“The bottom line is: never drive through high water,” Denham said. “It’s a good way to lose your life, not to mention the unnecessary risk first responders are exposed to when performing a rescue.”

As it is said: “turn around, don’t drown.”