- March 27, 2024
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Nancy Deane was on the floor of her bedroom when she was woken up, having been knocked off her bed in the night. She stood up and looked around to find that a car had smashed through the window and was now parked in her bedroom. It was 10 p.m. Tuesday, April 24, at 15 Cochise Court.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, 17-year-old Maria Barletta failed to negotiate the curve in front of the home, after seeing a deer. Homeowner and 23-year Palm Coast resident Ed Pratt had been sleeping in a different bedroom. He came to check on Deane and saw Barletta in the front lawn. She was clearly distraught, he said, and she apologized. Neither Barletta nor Deane was injured more than a scrape or a bruise, Pratt said.
Moments earlier, Barletta’s car had clipped the neighbor’s mailbox, plowed over two 5-foot-tall palms and drove into the house.
“She never changed direction,” Pratt said Thursday, as a crew screwed plywood over a hole about 10 feet tall and 10 feet wide in the front of the home. “You can draw a straight line from the road to the mailbox, to the house. She must have never turned the steering wheel.”
Moreover, Pratt observed, no skid marks can be found in the grass, only clean tracks to the bedroom.
“The whole thing remains, in my mind, open to question,” Pratt said.
Barletta was charged with driving too fast. (According to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, the names of minors are released in connection with traffic crashes.)
The posted speed limit is 30 mph, with a yellow sign nearby advising drivers to slow down to 20 mph around that curve. It’s not the first time someone has had difficulty making the turn, though: Pratt said his own mailbox at the house has been struck by cars several times. Once, someone drove across the lawn.
The Tuesday night crash was “surreal,” Pratt said. “The concrete exploded. Blocks were totally shattered.” Bits of concrete debris were found embedded in the drywall across the room. An 8-by-8-inch concrete block was found on the other side of the room.
Some blocks were pulverized. “It takes a tremendous amount of force to do that,” Pratt said. And yet, other than a few broken furniture knobs, there was little damage to Pratt’s or Deane’s possessions.
Some pictures were left hanging on the wall near the point of impact. Total damage is estimated between $20,000 and $25,000, according to the insurance companies.
Pratt added: “It sheds light on how fragile our existence is. … We all make mistakes. This is a big one, and an expensive one.”