‘The loudest bang you ever heard.’ Residents describe experience of car landing on roof
Sylvia Eshelman, 80, was sitting in her family room watching a church service Sunday morning when she heard a loud boom. Then the power went out. When she peered down the hallway, she saw the other side of the house was covered in debris.
“I wanted to go back to my doggy but thought it wasn’t safe,” Eshelman said.
It wasn’t until the firefighters arrived that she learned a car had gone straight through her roof, landing above her utility room and kitchen.
While the investigation is ongoing, preliminary evidence indicated that at about 9 a.m., the vehicle was heading west on East Amity Avenue at a “high rate of speed” when it “failed to navigate a curve” at South Diamond Street, the Nampa Police Department said in a news release.
The car hit a berm and went airborne, striking the chimney of one home before landing on Eshelman’s roof, according to police.
Three people were inside the vehicle at the time. Officials pronounced the man riding in the front passenger seat dead at the scene. Paramedics transported the other two to Boise-area hospitals.
The Canyon County Coroner’s Office identified the crash victim as Jose Teran Chaparro, 31, of Nampa. The coroner said Chaparro died from blunt-force injuries as a result of the crash, with the manner of death listed as accidental.
The vehicle also hit a power line, causing 3,860 customers to lose power until 3:25 p.m. Sunday, according to Idaho Power spokesperson Sven Berg.
No one inside either home was injured, but the houses sustained significant damage.
David Day, who owns the home with the damaged chimney, said he initially thought it was a tornado.
“My wife and I were in the front room, and there was just the loudest bang you ever heard,” Day said.
Day said the studs were knocked off the inside of one wall, causing it to partially collapse and destroy his bed.
“I’ve been remodeling the house for three years, and we were almost done, so it’s kind of heartbreaking,” Day said.
The car was not the first to fail to navigate that turn and end up on Day’s property. He said it happens multiple times a year and he has complained to the city about it to no avail.
He said he feels “terrible” that this one ended with a death and hopes something will be done to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
Day erected the berm because of these frequent accidents. Less than three feet in height, it is covered in rocks and small bushes.
“The berm frankly saved our life yesterday because they would have gone all the way through the house,” Day said.
Just in front of it, someone had placed a flower bouquet and a candle depicting St. Jude, the patron saint of hope and impossible causes.
