“Thank God we’re still alive”: Suspected drunk driver crashes into 2 homes

KENNESAW, Ga. — Police say a suspected drunk driver crashed into two Kennesaw houses after a high-speed chase with officers, destroying the kitchen and a bedroom in one of the homes.

Cobb police said just after 2:30 a.m., officers responded to a single-vehicle accident on Baker Road at its intersection with Jacobean Road.

It happened about 2:30 a.m. Friday along Alaspair Lane, just off Baker Road. Nobody was seriously hurt.

Cathy Reado had just gone into her kitchen for a glass of water and returned to her bedroom.

“When I got to the door of my room, boom!” she told Channel 2′s Bryan Mims. “I thought it was the weather, then again I thought maybe it was a tree.”

But she smelled gasoline. She yelled for everyone to get up. “And that’s when I looked in my kitchen and the vehicle was in my kitchen.”

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Not only was it in the kitchen, it had crashed through the bedroom where Abdolaye Seck had been asleep. “I can see the driver inside the car and the lights flashing,” he said.

Cobb County police identify the driver as 19-year-old Benedicto Morales of Jefferson. They say officers tried to stop his BMW X5 on Baker Road for failure to maintain a single lane and suspected drunk driving. That’s when the SUV took off at a high rate of speed. It ran off the road, plowing into landscaping outside the Brookwood Commons subdivision and crashing into the two homes on Alaspair Lane.

“It was terrifying,” Seck said. “Scary. But thank God we’re still alive.”

Two people were inside the first home. They declined interviews, but said the car heavily damaged their nephew’s bedroom and are grateful he wasn’t home. Reado is grateful, too, that nobody – including the driver – was seriously hurt.

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“Even though he did what he did, I’m just glad he’s safe,” she said. “Nothing bad happened to no one, that’s the blessing part about it.

Police say Morales, the driver, went to Wellstar Kennesaw Hospital. They have not said what charges he’s facing.

The residents of the first house that was hit say they can stay in their home, but the second house is too extensively damaged. The American Red Cross is helping to provide shelter.

“We’re still a little shaken up because this is something you see on TV, not right in front of your eyes,” Reado said.

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