Driver takes off running after wild crash into Farmingdale condominium
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- It was a wild scene on Long Island Thursday.
An out-of-control car crashed into a condo, with a family sleeping inside.
The home has been boarded up. The family told CBS2's Andrea Grymes it was terrifying, but they're just glad no one was hurt.
You can barely tell part of the wreck was the kitchen, amid the tons of debris in the Laiosa family's Farmingdale condo.
"The stove is in the living room. The whole bottom floor is totally ruined," homeowner Steve Laiosa said.
He says he, his wife and stepson were sleeping upstairs, when around 2:30 a.m. a car crashed through the windows into their first floor.
"The sound was so loud. My wife was screaming, and at that point I didn't know what was happening.
There's a trail of destruction outside. Laiosa and the Famingdale building inspector believe the speed car came from Route 109, barreling through the fence on the side of the condo, and going airborne. What's left of a broken tail light is stuck under the second floor windows.
"Chopped the top of the trees off, and landed backwards in my house. The trunk went in first," Laiosa said.
"This is really, really a miracle that it wasn't worse," said Farmingdale building inspector Ron De Marrais.
The Laiosa family wasn't hurt, and the driver had just minor injuries. Police say he ran off.
"He actually broke himself out of the windshield, came running this way. And I came from my back fence, and I met him right there. And he said 'Oh my God, I'm going to lose my job,'" Laiosa said.
Nassau police say a neighbor then caught the driver a few blocks away.
Police identified him as 20-year-old Calogero Messina of Astoria, Queens. He's charged with criminal mischief and leaving the scene of an incident.
"Obviously I want to see justice, but I sort of feel bad for the kid. He doesn't know what he did to himself," Laiosa said.
As for the home itself, the building inspector says an engineer has to come in and see what can be done to make it livable again. He says it doesn't appear any of the neighboring condos have any structural issues.
