Some crashes are fender-benders. Some are highway pile-ups. And then there’s the kind where a car ends up inside someone’s house before 8 a.m. on a Saturday. That’s the situation that unfolded in Richland Center, Wisconsin, this past weekend, and it falls squarely into the third category.
According to the Richland County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were called out at 7:15 a.m. on Saturday after a vehicle crashed into a home on the 25700 block of State Highway 58. The driver, 30-year-old Nathan Haydenburg of Gotham, Wisconsin, had been heading north on the highway at a high rate of speed when he lost control, left the road, and rolled the vehicle multiple times before it came to rest against the side of a residence.
Haydenburg had to be extricated from the vehicle by first responders and was transported by ambulance to Richland Hospital for treatment. Once he was cleared, authorities continued their investigation and placed him under arrest. The charge: his third OWI offense.
No other injuries were reported, and no additional details have been released at this time.
Third Time Is Not the Charm
A first OWI can, in some cases, be written off as a catastrophic lapse in judgment. A second is harder to explain away. A third, accompanied by a rollover crash into somebody’s home, moves the conversation into different territory entirely.
Wisconsin law escalates OWI penalties with each offense, and a third conviction carries mandatory minimum jail time along with a felony classification in certain circumstances.
The Physics Were Not Subtle
High speed, loss of control, multiple rollovers, structural contact with a building. The sequence here left little to the imagination about what went wrong.
No mechanical failure has been cited. No road hazard has been mentioned.
What Happens Next
Haydenburg was in custody as of the time of reporting.
The case will move through the Richland County court system, where his prior OWI history will factor into sentencing considerations if he is convicted.