Courtesy of Marion Hicks
Marion and Susan Hicks were watching television Saturday afternoon when they heard a sudden loud grinding sound outside their home at the corner of White Rock Road and Wildgrove Avenue. They looked through their big picture window to find the underbelly of a vehicle mere inches from the glass. When they stepped outside, they found a white Chevy sedan lodged nose-first between a downed tree and steel pickets. The driver, who appeared to be about 20 years old, was still inside.
The vehicle had gone airborne before cartwheeling and crashing into the Hicks’ tree, finally landing on its front bumper like a yogi doing a headstand. Susan called 911 while Marion checked on the driver.
Courtesy of Marion Hicks
Dallas Fire Rescue personnel responded quickly to extract the driver through the car window. The victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, was transported to the hospital with unknown injuries.
Marion expressed frustration after the crash, because insufficient storm drains on Wildgrove and White Rock allowed the driver’s tire to slide off the road, then overcorrect, launching him into the Hicks’ yard. Had speed bumps been installed, the car would never have been going fast enough to get airborne. Folks in the neighborhood have lobbied the City of Dallas for both types of improvements, he says.
When they built the house about five years ago, their architect proposed 8-foot steel pickets, 8 inches wide and 2 inches thick, to create a beautiful and dramatic effect. Installation was tricky, though, since the hollow steel tubes would have no horizontal support to ruin the effect. Marion had ideas of his own.
“After sitting with the problem for weeks, it dawned on us that we should set the pickets on rebar drilled into the grade beam, weld the rebar to the pickets, then fill the picket tubes with concrete. This would float the pickets as the architect had wanted, while making the pickets a sturdy barrier against the absurd possibility of someone driving so fast on White Rock that they might launch into our house. It was described at the time as engineering overkill.”
Marion imagined that prom night joyriders might miss the turn some fateful night, but he never figured on such a wild crash one sunny Saturday afternoon.
“I’m glad everyone is okay, and I’m happy the vehicle did not launch into our living room, but the trees were really pretty,” he says. “I guess they can be replaced. The pickets are worse for the wear. I guess we’ll need to figure out how to replace some of them without losing their engineering integrity and protective force.”
Marion credits Dallas Fire Rescue responders from engines #19 and #27, especially Captain Kevin Carlin and Lt. David Windle, who worked with an associated EMS team to pull the pinned driver out of the vehicle within 40 minutes of the crash. He also had high praise for Sergeant R. Kahn, Officer R. Flores and Officer C. Kohutek from the Dallas Police Department’s northeast station.
Courtesy of Marion Hicks
Courtesy of Marion Hicks
