'Like a sonic boom': Fishers grandfather recovering after stolen car crashes into home
Right before the walls around him came crashing down and debris filled the air, Joe Burnworth was sitting in his comfy chair watching the Cincinnati Reds inside his Fishers home.
The game was tied at zero and the 79-year-old man decided to get ready for bed. He stood up from the orange-cushioned seat and turned off the lights and TV. Then he was knocked off his feet.
“It was like a sonic boom,” Burnworth said. "I realized the tree was in the room and thought it must have fallen over and caused everything.”
As the dust began to settle, the Vietnam-war veteran, got his bearings. He saw a vehicle had barreled into his home in the 11100 block of Easy Street, taking out an east-facing wall and north-facing window.
“Everything turned so quickly,” said the man’s wife, Linda Burnworth. “This happened in what's supposed to be the most secure place you can be – your home.”
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Joe Burnworth began calling out to the driver of the vehicle and asking if they were OK. He asked three times and all he got in return was a groan or a grunt. The front room in the normally tidy home was cluttered with pieces of a broken desk, tree branches, insulation and dry wall.
Without any shoes, Joe Burnworth was forced to climb onto the glass-covered sofa to escape the room as Linda called 911.
Once out of the front room, Joe had blood dripping from his arm, but was still worried about whoever was inside the vehicle. He flagged emergency responders down from the street before they took him to the hospital.
Joe Burnworth was left with an abrasion on his forehead, a soft cast on his arm where the skin peeled off and stitches and bruising on his legs and side, but he only spent one day in the hospital.
“I've been in a lot of crises in my life and the number one thing is not to panic,” Joe Burnworth said. “You have to take a deep breath, get a sense of where you are then take action so that's what I did.”
The Fishers couple later found out the car that struck their home on Aug. 24 around 11:30 p.m. was stolen, and police are still looking for the driver. The driver of the black Kia fled the crash on foot.
An officer with the Fishers Police Department had been pursuing the car after the driver ran a red light then sped off from a traffic stop on Allisonville Road.
The driver turned off the vehicle's lights and into the Burnworths’ neighborhood. Instead of curving with the road, the driver sped over a mound in the couple’s front yard, which caused the vehicle to go airborne and knock into a large maple tree before it struck the home.
The crash is still being investigated and no arrests have been made, according to the Fishers Police Department.
It’s hard for Joe and Linda to understand what the driver was thinking when they stole the vehicle in the first place.
“I don’t know the mentality,” Joe Burnworth said. “I just hope he learned from this and it’s not something he is bragging about.”
Joe Burnworth, who lives an active life of disc golf, working out and yoga, is now recovering at home. Linda is working with insurance companies to have the home repaired – slabs of wood are currently serving as two of the walls in the front room.
In the days after the crash, Linda and Joe were visited by their children and grandchildren.
“We were just happy to be together, laughing about grandpa surviving another one because I've been in close calls before,” Joe Burnworth said. “If I weren't here, it wouldn't be funny, but I am here. You laugh and the world laughs with you, or you cry and you cry alone."
Contact Jake Allen at jake.allen@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @Jake_Allen19.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Fishers grandfather recovering after stolen Kia crashes into home
