SAN ANTONIO – Exhausted from working on his PhD., Baha Biten was committed to staying in bed at all costs Thursday morning.
Even a commotion after 2 a.m. outside his apartment complex in the 6600 block of UTSA Boulevard, barely caused him to roll over.
RELATED: Car plows through utility pole, travels 500 yards down sidewalk near UTSA
“In the middle of my sleep, I heard a very loud noise,” he said. “I opened my eyes and then the electricity went off, the lights went off. I was super tired. I just continued sleeping. I didn’t care.”
He later found out that loud noise was, in fact, a cause for concern.
It was the sound of a car plowing through a utility pole nearby.
The crash sent debris flying right into his Mercedes which was parked inside his apartment complex.
Biten woke up later to a call about the damage, which included bent metal stripping, a shattered windshield and broken side mirror.
Still, the car damage wasn’t his biggest worry.
“That was my very first question I asked whenever I came here, “Were the people safe? Were they all right?”
San Antonio police say the car that crashed contained a 27-year-old man who was driving and a 25-year-old female passenger.
They say it appears the driver was speeding down UTSA Boulevard.
After breaking the utility pole in two, his car kept going, dragging along the sidewalk and ripping up landscaping.
It finally came to a stop when it broke through a wooden fence about 500 yards down the road.
Police say the driver suffered minor injuries while the passenger suffered a compound fracture to her ankle. Both were taken to a hospital.
Biten says this is not the first crash he has seen on that strip, which is not far from UTSA’s main campus.
“It’s maybe because people don’t see the little curves in the middle of the street at night time or they’re intoxicated. Who knows?,” he said.
In this case, police believe the driver was intoxicated.
They say once he is released from the hospital, he will face a charge of intoxication assault.