You've got to be kidding me!

At about 2:00 am on Sunday, June 10, we awoke to the sound of a truck plowing down our fence and looked out our window just in time to see him back out and take off!  Cops were called and thankfully the guy left behind enough of his truck that they were able to find him shortly afterwards still driving around town quite drunk.  Having never been drunk I just can't wrap my mind around how a person could have gone so far into our yard, destroyed so much, and then just backed up, took off, and still drove around town as if nothing happened.  What an idiot!  

About 2:30 am, collecting evidence with the police.

He hit the curb about 30 feet before he hit the fence, coming in at an angle.  The black mark on the fence covers a panel of fence, marking where his truck started to make contact.  Luckily the angle he was at just pushed the chicken coup out of the way and no chickens or coup were harmed.  

He then plowed through the fence into the sandbox, leaving the wood in splinters.  After cleaning up the fence wood we found that there are to many tiny splinters in the sandbox to clean up.  We'll need to replace the sand, along with all the sand toys that were demolished as well.

After plowing down a few panels of fence and ruining the sandbox he continued through to the playground, taking the swingset with him and leaving it in a pretzel in the tree.

The swingset, and part of his wheel well that he left behind.  Thank goodness it was 2 am and no kids were out playing!!!  They spend hours out in this area of the yard!  I don't know how I'll feel comfortable letting them be out here anymore.  :(

After hitting the swingset he continued through our side fence and into the neighbor's yard.  He stopped only after coming into contact with the corner of their house, though luckily at that point he was pretty much stopped and only left a mark on the house and no other damage.  

At that point he threw it into reverse and backed out of our neighbor's fence and took off.  

I was in complete shock as I watched him take off that morning and went out and assessed the damage. I still cannot believe it happened!  15 years nothing happened to this fence, but since we bought this house (15 months ago) our fence has been knocked down TWICE!  Can we assume it will never happen again since the chances are so slim, or should we conclude our yard is not a safe place for the kids to play?  

We're in the process of negotiating with the guy's car insurance (thank goodness he had some!!) to get compensated for our losses.  So far they're not being terribly cooperative, but in the end I'm sure it'll work out.  In the meantime we've put up a temporary construction fence through the half of the yard that wasn't damaged so the kids can still go outside.  Oy!  What a mess!