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Sacramento family still recovering after driver of stolen vehicle crashes into home

Nearly a week after a Sacramento police pursuit ended with the driver of a stolen vehicle crashing inside a Sacramento home, a family is still recovering and rebuilding. 

On Friday, Sacramento Police say a suspect in a stolen vehicle led officers on a pursuit through a South Sacramento neighborhood, in an attempt to evade the law. Witnesses at the scene who filmed and watched the car race by their homes told CBS Sacramento they believed the car was going "at least" 100 miles an hour. 

The car, filmed whizzing by on a security camera and followed closely by multiple police cars blaring their sirens and lights, crash-landed inside a home at the end of a cul-de-sac. 

The driver was taken into custody on scene, but three people inside were injured — one of them was a father, trapped underneath the stolen vehicle.

Marissa Fulcher's father and two teenage brothers were in their family home watching television on Friday. She said her father was sitting in a recliner chair when the car broke through the wall of their home into the living room.

She says one brother was pinned under the refrigerator and another was pushed to the back of the kitchen by the sheer speed and force of the vehicle crashing through. 

"Absolutely heartbreaking. I had no answers. I wasn't sure what their status was… it was devastating," Fulcher said.

It took first responders 90 minutes to get her father out from under the car, she said, and he's been hospitalized ever since. She believes it's a miracle he survived after seeing the damage to her childhood home. 

"To the extent the car was inside the house, I feel that he shouldn't have survived this at all," Fulcher said.

Fulcher said her father has broken ribs and a broken spine, among other injuries, and is too weak for immediate surgery. She said he is speaking, but it's soft and his memory of what happened hasn't fully returned.

"It's a waiting game at this point," Fulcher said, describing her father's recovery, noting every day is different.

Her brothers escaped with minor injuries, she said. One of them has a broken hand, but both are out of the hospital.

In the meantime, she said, the family is focused on her father's healing and rebuilding the family home that, right now, is unlivable.

"Everything that makes a house a home has been destroyed. It's heartbreaking," Fulcher said.

The family has questions about what happened and how a police pursuit landed in a residential neighborhood, but it's not their focus. Instead, they are channeling all energy into Fulcher's father's healing. 

In a statement to CBS Sacramento, a Sacramento police spokesperson said the incident is still under investigation. 

"What we can say is that this was a rapidly evolving situation involving a confirmed stolen vehicle and an individual who chose to flee from officers, putting the public, the impacted family, and our officers at risk," the spokesperson said. "We recognize how deeply this incident affected the family and our thoughts are with everyone involved."

Sacramento police have a publicly available pursuit policy that outlines protocol before, during, and after a pursuit is initiated.

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