Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Drunk woman crashed right through home

A boozed-up driver tore through a 96-year-old woman’s Long Island house on Monday, spinning such a devastating path of destruction that the stove wound up in the back yard, police said. Sophia Anderson, 21, was behind the wheel of a red convertible Mercedes at about 4 a.m. when she failed to turn at a T-shaped intersection and slammed into the Huntington home of Helen Indiere.



The car tore through the kitchen and busted through the flowery wallpapered rear wall. It finally came to a stop when it hit a tree in the backyard garden. It struck with such force it shook neighbouring homes. “I never heard brakes,” said next-door neighbour Kimberly Steinberg, who called 911. The driver’s mother, Susan Anderson, was in shock when told her about the crash. “Oh, my God! This is not like her. I don’t know what’s going on,” the shaken-up mother said. “She doesn’t have a car in the city. I don’t know whose it is.”



Anderson, who grew up in the tony Connecticut town of Deep River, left for the city two years ago, her mother said. She moved from Queens to Harlem to her current digs in Bushwick, Brooklyn — all the while working and applying to schools. “She has her own life; she’s been away for a couple of years now. I don’t even know who her friends are,” her mother said. Anderson works as a waitress at the Union Square restaurant Kibo, and was informed on Sunday that it was closing, a friend and co-worker said.



She told colleagues she was headed to the Hamptons for the weekend, the friend said — though Huntington is nowhere near the Hamptons. “Nothing seemed wrong,” said the friend, who did not want to be identified. “She likes to have fun after the job, but nothing crazy,” the friend added. Indiere and her live-in caretaker were not injured, police said. Anderson and an unidentified man riding in the car suffered minor injuries. Anderson refused to take a Breathalyzer or blood test, police said, and was charged with driving while intoxicated.