Timing crucial when car crashed into mobile home near Aberdeen

Aug. 12--Jacalyn Olson was in Houston visiting her seriously ill father when she found out that a driver had crashed into her mobile home Friday night.

Olson rushed back to Aberdeen to assess the damage to her house, which is in Country Village, northwest of Aberdeen.

"I'm crushed. I'm numb," she said Monday. "I've got my dad on a ventilator in Houston right now, and I have no home here."

At least there's some good news. Olson and her boyfriend, Brett Chlebecek, expect to get insurance money for her home very soon so they can start making other plans.

Chlebecek, 29, and Olson's dog, Diesel, were the only occupants of the home when the car hit the broad side of the mobile home at about 10:05 p.m. Friday.

The vehicle was driven by Lance Kolb, 36. He suffered from a medical problem that caused the accident, said Brown County Sheriff's Office Deputy Ben Smith.

The passenger was Kristine Wellman, 31. Both live in Country Village, Smith said. No one has been cited as of yet, Smith said.

Chlebecek was staying at the home to keep the dog company while Olson was out of town. He was sitting on a couch watching a Minnesota Vikings exhibition game. The force of the crash threw him through the air to the other side of the house.

Booms heard

Chlebecek heard two booms during the incident, which lasted just a few seconds.

Just before the accident, "I heard the car speed up," said Chlebecek, surmising that the vehicle hit the curb and must have gone airborne. It landed just outside the house, causing the first boom.

When he heard the first noise, he said to himself, "Wow, I didn't know we were supposed to get thunder."

The second boom was the sound of the car driving into the mobile home. The crash was about four feet behind where he was sitting.

After Chlebecek got to his feet, he asked both occupants of the car if they were OK. The woman said she couldn't move and was reaching for her cellphone, he said.

After he left the house, Chlebecek asked a neighbor to call 911.

Chlebecek, whose ribs were bruised in the accident, spent about two and a half hours in a hospital Friday.

But the two people in the car weren't seriously injured, he said.

"They left the hospital before I did," said Chlebecek, who said he never lost consciousness and didn't suffer any serious injuries.

After the crash, Chlebecek also worried about his girlfriend's dog. Fortunately, Diesel turned up quickly.

"He comes around the corner like 'Hey what's going on?' " Chlebecek said.

Fortunate timing

About a minute before the collision, Chlebecek had been near the dining room table, plugging in his phone. At that table, he would have taken a direct hit from the car.

If he had been at the table when the car arrived, "I might not be talking to you now," he said.

He and Olson agree that a higher power pulled him away from that dining room table.

"Considering how it happened, I was very lucky," he said.

A gesture he made toward the dog, just before he heard the car, also diverted Diesel away from the vehicle's path. He described the dog as a hero. The dog is a mixture of black lab, beagle and pug.

Chlebecek said the accident could have been worse.

"If it wasn't for the steel frame under the house, they would have gone through the house," he said.

Chlebecek's ribs remained sore on Monday.

"It's going to affect my golf game. It wasn't very good to begin with," he said, smiling.

Olson had lived in the mobile home since December with her two boys, Wyatt, 8, and Liam, 5. They did extensive remodeling after they moved in, including new carpet and walls.

Olson jokingly put up a "House for Sale" sign on the outside of the home, noting that it had a "cute kitchen" and a "newly added vaulted ceiling and open floor plan" included in the price. "The toilet in the second bathroom needs to be replaced. Godspeed."

Olson left Houston at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and drove 1,105 miles in a rental car to Sioux Falls, where Chlebecek picked her up.

Olson's father, Greg Wicks, 53, is in a medically induced coma, his daughter said.

Chlebecek, a native of Marshall, Minn., came to Aberdeen to play baseball at Presentation College. He's lived in Aberdeen for 10 1/2 years.

Follow @JeffBahr_AANon Twitter.

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