Car smashes into house

A car traveling at a high speed crashed into the garage roofline of a house at 203 S. Howe St. early Saturday morning, according to the Lampasas Police Department.

Also, neighbor Wayne Hilgenberg sent the Dispatch Record a photo of the vehicle fire that he and his next-door neighbor, Davis Keele, extinguished at the Howe Street house shortly after the crash. 

Lt. Investigator Charlie Boswell gave the following details about the collision, reported to the police at 1:32 a.m. Saturday.

Frederick Delacruz Jr., a 28-year-old Lampasan, was driving a 2019 Ford Mustang north on Howe. Ashley Brown, a 26-year-old Lampasas resident, was riding in the front seat of the Mustang.

The Mustang ran off the east side of Howe, hit the curb and struck a retaining wall at the property line between 203 S. Howe and the residence to the south. The collision with the retaining wall launched the car into the air, and the Mustang hit the garage roofline.

The car then fell on a pickup parked in the driveway, Boswell said.

The roofline collision pushed in the garage door, where homeowner Jack Harrell III said a Corvette and Hyundai Genesis were parked.

Acadian Ambulance Service transported Delacruz and Brown for medical treatment, as the driver and passenger were injured, Boswell said.

No one inside the house was hurt.

Harrell, who said he built his house on South Howe about two or three years ago, was asleep when the Mustang crashed into his garage.

“We heard a loud boom, and I thought I saw a flash through my eyelids,” Harrell said.

The homeowner said several neighbors acted quickly in the minutes after the crash.

Harrell said Hilgenberg – a Lampasas County Sheriff’s Office investigator – and Keele used a garden hose to put out the car fire.

Hilgenberg – off duty at the time – said he and Keele were talking when they heard the collision about a block away. Hilgenberg said he recognized the noise as the sound of a vehicle crash, so he and Keele went to see how they could help.

Hilgenberg said John Rogers, one of Harrell’s neighbors, removed the passenger from the Mustang.

Harrell said he and the occupants of the Mustang were fortunate “that everybody got here as quick as they did.”

Police arrived at the house on South Howe at 1:36 a.m. – four minutes after the call about the crash – Boswell said. The lieutenant investigator said he does not know if the Mustang occupants were wearing seat belts when the crash happened.

The Mustang was towed with severe damage, Boswell said. The lieutenant investigator said the pickup in Harrell’s driveway sustained “major” damage.

The damage to the two vehicles in the garage was not as severe, according to Boswell.

On Monday morning, noting debris, Harrell said: “I’m sure they’re driveable. They’re just not accessible.”

Harrell said the crash peeled back some of the garage roof, damaged “a good bit of landscape,” and damaged a front-porch column and the right edge of the front porch.

The homeowner also said a limestone block from the retaining wall was launched from his south property line into the yard of his neighbor to the north. The block – which Harrell estimated to be 8x8 or 10x10 – came to rest about 10 feet from First Street, Harrell said.

“We found debris from the car in our back yard, and so did our neighbor [to the south],” he said.

Harrell said there have been problems for some time with vehicles racing down the stretch of Howe in front of his house.

The police department did not issue citations in connection to the crash, Boswell said.

The lieutenant investigator reported the crash site was cleared Saturday at 3:18 a.m.