Tuesday, May 8, 2007
A 23-year-old man crashed his Dodge Dakota pickup truck into the Chi Omega sorority house early Sunday morning. The vehicle was traveling at speeds up to 80 mph and narrowly missed students swimming in the Chi Omega fountain, witnesses said.
Police had been chasing the vehicle after responding to disturbance with a weapon at the 500 block of 14th Street at 2:20 a.m. According to a police report, the man smashed the windows of two vehicles with a hammer and threatened a man with a knife. He fled after police arrived.
Osama El-Tayash, Columbia, Mo., sophomore, and Rufus Kerr, Lawrence sophomore, had stopped to take a dip in the fountain as a study break when the accident occurred. They said about eight other students were in the fountain at the time, some swimming in bikinis or boxers.
They first heard sirens, and then saw a truck without its headlights on barreling down the street, followed by a police car.
“We had less than three seconds to move,” El-Tayash said. “Even if we did, we wouldn’t know which way to run.”
When the truck reached the traffic control booth on Jayhawk Boulevard, the driver swerved to the left and smashed through two cement posts before he careened over the grass around the fountain and broke through a brick retaining wall, finally coming to a stop against the Chi Omega sorority house.
“Everyone just froze inside the fountain,” Kerr said. “We thought the guy was dead for sure.”
El-Tayash said the students were lucky that the driver choose to turn left instead of right at the traffic control booth. If he had swerved right he would have had a direct path to the students in the fountain.
“One girl was throwing up right where the truck went the minute before,” Kerr said. “We were just so vulnerable.” Kerr said the crash was so loud that students on the fourth floor of Marvin Hall, some of whom were wearing headphones, could clearly hear the impact.
“I’ve replayed that scene about 200 times in my head,” El-Tayash said. “What if we were crossing the street at the time?”
After their first nighttime visit to the fountain, Kerr and El-Tayash won’t be heading back anytime soon.
“I don’t think I’ll ever do that again,” El-Tayash said. “It was a bad omen.”
Members of Chi Omega evacuated the house and did not return for the rest of the night. None were hurt in the accident.
The driver was flown by helicopter to Kansas City Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
Kansan staff writer Joe Hunt can be contacted at jhunt@kansan.com.
— Edited by Joe Caponio
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