Driver flees after car crashes into house in Bensenville

Jim Nierodzik thought he was dreaming when a noise that "sounded like a bomb" startled him awake in the bedroom of his Bensenville home Monday night.

Dialing 911, he raced downstairs and found an SUV that had crashed into the front wall and picture window of his home on Plentywood Lane at about 9:45 p.m. .

"It happened around the time the storm was coming, and at first I thought a tree had come in through the skylight," he said.

Nierodzik and another family member inside the house were unharmed. The driver fled the scene on foot before the homeowner got there.

Bensenville Police Chief Frank Kosman said the driver is still at large, and police are following several leads. He also confirmed several empty beer cans were found inside the vehicle.

Officials with the Bensenville Fire Protection District who responded to the crash said the SUV also hit two other vehicles on Church Road and took down an electric pole before it ran into the house.

"The car took out the bottom five feet of the pole and it was suspended by the electrical wires above it," said Bensenville Fire Battalion Chief Larry Karp. "Wood was scattered all over the street."

The home on the 700 block of Plentywood Lane is now boarded up and Karp said the damage estimate is $15,000. The residents are able to stay in the home, however, until repairs are finished.