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Car crashes into house, lands on sleeping man

A police officer examines the scene of an accident where a vehicle went airborne after running off a major highway and plowed through a house, landing on top of a man sleeping in his bed in Pine Bluff, Ark., on Sunday. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Associated Press
A police officer examines the scene of an accident where a vehicle went airborne after running off a major highway and plowed through a house, landing on top of a man sleeping in his bed in Pine Bluff, Ark., on Sunday. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – In one instant, Rickey May thought a bomb had gone off outside his home.

In the next, he realized a car had crashed through his home’s brick wall and landed on top of him in his bed.

“It was something pretty wild to wake up to,” May said Monday from his hospital room at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.

Police say Devlon Chandler, 34, and his wife were traveling through Pine Bluff early Sunday after a trip to a casino when Chandler fell asleep at the wheel.

The car left the road, hit a telephone pole, ruptured a gas line and went airborne briefly before crashing through May’s wall.

As the 1996 Ford Taurus shot across the bed, it rolled May inside his mattress “like a burrito,” protecting him from the force of the accident, May said.

“The first thing I thought was I was dying,” he said.

Heat from the muffler burned May’s chest, and he said the car’s weight on his chest was the most frightening. He said he was afraid that when the pressure was released he would die.

“I just knew I was dead – I told God sorry for everything I’d done, but I asked him to help,” May added.

Hospital spokeswoman Jerri Jackson said May, 42, was in fair condition Monday, but may need to have his right-hand ring finger amputated.

The Chandlers also were taken to the hospital, but their injuries were not serious and they were treated and released.

Devlon Chandler was ticketed for failing to maintain control of a motor vehicle, driving on a suspended license and not having proof of insurance, police said.