Out of control car lands in family's backyard swimming pool

Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Car crash lands in family's pool
The mess left behind won't be easy to clean up

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A family in Cypress woke up Tuesday morning to find a Dodge Charger inside their backyard pool.

"What woke us up was probably the tidal wave of water hitting the back of our house," Leighanna Brownlee says.

Brownlee tells Eyewitness News two teenage boys were speeding through the neighborhood around 4am when they lost control of the wheel. The car crashed through a wooden fence and slammed into the side of the pool.

Brownlee says by the time she got dressed, the two boys were standing on the pool deck. They were not injured.

"They were pretty shaken up, and they kept saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,'" Brownlee says, "And I got them some blankets and took them in the house."

It appears the pool kept the car from hitting the side of the house.

"It could have hit our bedroom, my side of the bed," Brownlee says.

The Brownlees are waiting on a special pool company to drain the pool. The water is murky and filled with oil and gas. After a dip in the freezing cold, murky water, tow truck crews managed to haul the car out of the pool.

The cleanup will take some time, since the pool is now contaminated with oil

Neighborhood kids came by to see the damage. Even they can see what an ordeal clean-up will be.

"There's oil everywhere and, like, you're going to have to clean out the whole pool," Ryan Sims says. "And there's probably glass at the bottom, so it just kind of sucks."

The Harris County Sheriff's Office responded to the call Tuesday morning. Deputies have not generated an official report yet, and it is not clear whether charges will be filed against the teens. Friends of the teen driver tell Eyewitness News the driver just got the car three days ago.