Police arrest 23-year-old who fled from RIDE checkpoint

Brad Dunville said it took three hours for his heart rate to come down.

Dunville and his girlfriend Ashley Colbey were asleep early Thursday morning in their Newton Crescent basement apartment when they were awakened by a loud crash.

“It was a boom that shook the whole house,” he said hours after a driver allegedly fleeing a police RIDE program, smashed into the side of their home, caving in a portion of the wall and foundation.

The 23-year-old driver, who police have not named, was arrested around the corner on Darwin Crescent, after careening off a pair of vehicles before coming to rest in a driveway.

“I ran out of the bedroom, and our bedroom is right by the living room. I got dressed, I came outside and of course there were about four or five police cars out there. When I came out there was a truck. All I saw were headlights from the window. He backed up and took off and that’s when I got dressed and came out here,” Dunville said.

“It’s not too much damage. It could have been worse.”

It was pretty scary, he said.

“We woke up at two in the morning from this and I couldn’t get my heart rate down until about five in the morning. I’ve never experienced anything like that before, to wake up to basically a vehicle coming into your living room. That’s not exactly a good wake-up call, I guess you could say.”

Colbey was equally shocked at the abrupt way she was roused out of bed.

“it’s just shocking. It’s not what you expect. Every noise after that, you can’t sleep. But nobody got hurt and everything can be replaced, so that’s all that matters,” she said.

A neighbour at the end of the block, who asked not to be identified, said she and her roommate heard the initial collision and watched as the driver of the truck barreled down Newton Crescent, on a crash course with their home.

She said with police tailing close behind, at the last second the driver managed to make a left turn onto Darwin, before hitting a white sedan located less than 100 metres away.

“It was fast for this neighbourhood,” she said, asked how fast the chase appeared.

Police said the RIDE program was set up at Balmoral and Beverly streets.

“A vehicle approached a pick-up truck and they were asked to pull over for a roadside screening test, at which time the driver and occupant of the vehicle refused to stop and drove down Beverly Street and subsequently tried to make a right-hand turn onto Newton, and unfortunately struck the house,” said Det.-Const. Robert Miller, a traffic reconstruction specialist with Thunder Bay Police Service. 

Tire tracks in the grass show the path the truck took before hitting the home.

The occupant of the truck was found near the scene, questioned and released.

“The driver has been charged with impaired driving, failing to remain as well as dangerous driving. There will probably be several Highway Traffic Act charges that will be applied as well. He’ll be doing to court this morning.”

Miller added the occupants of the home were lucky.

“It’s very lucky that nobody was seriously injured at all and that the people of the residence weren’t in the living room at the time,” said Miller, reminding people not to drink and drive as the holidays approach and to take advantage of services like Operation Red Nose.