Car slams into two townhomes, driver injured

• Aftermath of crash

Aftermath of crash
• Repairing the damage

Several Comcast workers spent much of Friday morning replacing the utility box destroyed in a car accident in the Markgrafs Lake Drive neighborhood. The car that struck the utility box also crashed into a twinhome.
• Car slams through garage door, into house

A white Pontiac Grand Am, driven by a St. Paul man crashed through a home on the 700 block of Markgrafs Lake Drive shortly before 1:30 a.m. Friday. Police said the vehicle broke through the garage door, struck a parked vehicle and crashed into shared garage wall.

Talk about it

Residents in a Woodbury neighborhood were surveying the damage Friday left after an early morning accident where a driver crashed into two adjoining homes near Markgrafs Lake.

According to police reports, a vehicle driven by a 27-year-old St. Paul man was traveling at a high-rate of speed and slammed into the homes on the 700 block of Markgrafs Lake Drive shortly before 1:30 a.m.

Portions of both homes were extensively damaged, but none of the occupants inside were injured, Woodbury police said.

Woodbury police and ambulatory emergency medical technicians responded to the scene within minutes and transported the driver to Regions Hospital in St. Paul. He was conscious at the scene, police said.

According to police the car was traveling east from Tamarack Drive, where it crossed the intersection at Woodbury Drive and entered onto Markgrafs Lake Drive.

The vehicle, a white 2006 Pontiac Grand Am driven by Kevin Joseph Harr, then skidded off the curving road and collided with an electrical box and street light, the report stated. The vehicle continued on its path and proceeded to break through a garage door of a twin home and crash into a vehicle parked in the garage. The collision caused the driver's vehicle to launch into the air and crash through a shared garage wall, where it came to rest, the Woodbury police report stated.

The driver's car and the two vehicles parked in the garage were towed away from the scene.

Neighbors who were surveying the damage caused to the home Friday morning said their cable television and internet service had been out as a result of the vehicle's collision with a cable box before it struck the homes.

Comcast crews were working at the scene to replace the damaged equipment.

Woodbury police are continuing to investigate the nature of the crash, said Woodbury Public Safety director Lee Vague.

“Generally speaking, if somebody crashes through a house at 1:25 in the morning we are going to be looking into it as far as whether there is any controlled substance or alcohol involved,” Vague said.

Vague said that in cases where a driver in an accident is seriously injured, a blood sample is taken to determine if alcohol or other substances may have been a factor in the accident. The blood samples are then sent to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to be evaluated, which means the results could take up to a few weeks to be entered into a crash investigation, Vague said.

LAST UPDATE: Nov. 21, 10:50 a.m.

Tags: news, car, townhomes, woodbury, police, crash