Some Erin Ridge residents got a rude awakening early Sunday morning when a driver took a stolen truck through their yards.
Lisa Huang, who lives on Empress Way, said she and her family were sound asleep when they heard a big bang in their backyard and police helicopters overhead. Huang and her husband presumed the wind had knocked over one of their planters and didn't think much of the helicopters. They were going back to sleep when their doorbell rang.
On their doorstep was an RCMP officer, who informed them someone had driven through their backyard.
Huang called the event a "freak incident."
"If I didn't see it, I definitely would not have believed it," she said.
When she looked into her backyard, her back fence had been knocked over. The driver had come from Ted Hole Park, entered her neighbour's backyard who lives directly behind her house, and driven over the fence that separated them.
The driver then went on to go through Huang's yard and to the front of her house on the driveway, before taking off out the front of the cul-de-sac. She said he missed her patio, which is load-bearing, by about three inches.
Huang said it was lucky there wasn't any serious damage done and nobody was injured in the incident.
"He could have picked any of the other yards and there would have been a lot more damage," she said, adding the yards the driver travelled through had very few obstacles.
She noted the driver was also lucky not to have hit any barbecues, sheds or piles of wood that are in some of her neighbours' yards.
Connor Hogg, who also lives in the neighbourhood, had worked a late shift that night and didn't know anything about the incident until he woke up the next morning. He got a text from his grandmother, who lives nearby, asking if he had seen the damage from the night before.
"I got up in my housecoat and went outside and she showed me the backyard fence (that) had just kind of crumbled," he said.
The fence between Hogg's home and his neighbour's house had been run over.
Hogg said the driver was lucky to have narrowly missed the shed in his backyard. His drain spout was crushed and he saw dirt dragged onto the road from his neighbour's yard.
The next day, the neighbourhood had a block party, where the incident was the topic of discussion.
Neighbours say police told them the vehicle was stolen from a business in Spruce Grove by a youth. Edmonton Police pursued the teen, who entered Edmonton before travelling out to St. Albert with a police helicopter in pursuit. RCMP followed the vehicle toward Morinville, where the driver was eventually arrested.
The Gazette was not able to independently confirm those details with the RCMP or Edmonton Police before press time.
