Friday night was a special evening for 18-year-old Shelby Girmscheid. Just not in the way she expected.<\/p>\n
Like many teenagers across the country, Girmscheid was preparing for prom. The Thunder Mountain High School junior stood in front of her mirror, checking out her \u201cblushy-pink\u201d dress and high heels she had picked out for Saturday\u2019s prom.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was at my little vanity, and I just heard a noise and something froze me. It\u2019s all sort of a blur. I just remember trying to get out of my room. I remember screaming. Everybody in my family was screaming,\u201d Girmscheid said.<\/p>\n
A drunken driver had crashed through Girmscheid\u2019s bedroom wall just inches from her. Driving his blue Dodge Caravan with 0.227 percent blood alcohol content, police said 50-year-old Lance Cesar had swerved off the road, knocked over a highway sign, struck a boulder and plowed through a 12-foot shed before pushing into the teen\u2019s bedroom, causing about $40,000 in damage.<\/p>\n
The family provided security camera footage that can be viewed on the Juneau Empire Facebook page.<\/p>\n
Disoriented, Girmscheid was buried under her full-body mirror. She says she doesn\u2019t remember much about the immediate aftermath.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to get on a robe because I was in my prom dress. I went out to see what happened and I was in shock, I was freaking out. The responders were trying to calm me down, asking me if I was hurt,\u201d Girmscheid said.<\/p>\n
According to a Juneau Police Department release, Cesar fled the scene and tried to hide under a trailer near the crash site on Mendenhall Loop Road. He was apprehended within the hour and charged with Driving While Intoxicated and failure to provide immediate notice of a crash.<\/p>\n
Girmscheid\u2019s older sister, Cheyenne Girmscheid, and her fianc\u00e9 Kenny Paquin, were asleep in the next room when the crash happened. Cheyenne and Shelby\u2019s parents, Suzanna and Michael Lessard also live in the house with a 16-year-old son.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of a sudden we hear this crash, and everything just starts shaking,\u201d Cheyenne said. \u201cI heard my sister\u2019s blood-curdling scream.\u201d<\/p>\n
When checking on his fiance\u2019s sister, Paquin said he heard grunts coming from outside. He went around the back of the house to see who was out there.<\/p>\n
Paquin located Cesar and tried to get him to sit down and wait for police. He said Cesar was disoriented, mumbling about having to go see his wife.<\/p>\n
Cesar fled the scene on foot, and Paquin grabbed a flashlight and went after him, police said. A few neighbors had tracked the man to the trailer, which helped JPD apprehend Cesar.<\/p>\n
About a year before the crash, the family had built a shed next to the house. They used the roughly 12×8 structure to house lawn mowers, snow blowers and bicycles.<\/p>\n
That shed was virtually destroyed. Cesar\u2019s Dodge was the only thing keeping the shed\u2019s roof from caving completely. Responding officers had to erect a support beam to pull the Dodge from the wreckage safely.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe hit it perfectly between two support beams, so the roof didn\u2019t fall in at all,\u201d Cheyenne said. \u201cHowever, it did knock it (the house) off the foundation, so it\u2019s actually kind of bowed on one side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cheyenne thinks it will take a full remodel of the back of the house to fix all the damage.<\/p>\n
Shelby was taken to Bartlett Regional Hospital for a medical exam and MRI. She said she didn\u2019t suffer any serious injuries during the whole ordeal.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s still able to wear her blushy-pink prom dress, though she had to trade her heels in for flats because her ankle was bothering her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the shed in my backyard wasn\u2019t there, I probably wouldn\u2019t be going to prom and I probably wouldn\u2019t be here,\u201d Girmscheid said. \u201cThat\u2019s the main thing: don\u2019t drink and drive.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Kevin Gullufsen at 523-2228 or kevin.gullufsen@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Friday night was a special evening for 18-year-old Shelby Girmscheid. Just not in the way she expected. Like many teenagers across the country, Girmscheid was preparing for prom. The Thunder Mountain High School junior stood in front of her mirror, checking out her \u201cblushy-pink\u201d dress and high heels she had picked out for Saturday\u2019s prom. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":32023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32022"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}