OCEANSIDE – A van with a driver suspected of being drunk barreled out of control into a house on Halloween night, tearing through two bedroom walls and stopping just short of the bed where a father and son slept.
Martin Alvarez and his 8-year-old son, Erick, were jolted awake by the deafening crash before 11 p.m.
“I jumped about 3 feet out of bed,” said Alvarez, 42, who has lived in the home on Brown Street since 1989.
Clouds of dust filled the air, and mounds of debris trapped them inside the room.
Firefighters had to push aside smashed drywall, a shattered window pane and a splintered dresser to free the pair, who escaped unscathed.
The driver, 19-year-old Miles Snyder, was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, as well as possession of marijuana for sale. About 100 grams of pot were found in the 1991 Ford van, police said.
A 20-year-old passenger was also uninjured.
Police said the van had backed into a parked car at a nearby apartment complex on Barnard Drive minutes before. An officer who spotted the van leaving the complex turned around to follow it and heard the van crashing into the house.
Yesterday, Alvarez surveyed the gaping hole and noted this wasn't the first errant driver to damage his home, tucked away in a cul-de-sac.
Earlier this year, a car crashed into his parked pickup and pushed it into the wall on the other side of his house.
“That just doesn't happen twice in one year,” he said.
Kristina Davis: (760) 476-8233; kristina.davis@uniontrib.com
