It’s a nursery, not a garage

Analysis:

This article from the front-page of the Grand Rapids Press focuses on an accident in which an SUV drove crashed through the wall of a home in Rockford, Michigan, just missing a sleeping five-month old baby. While the story–which involved drunken-driving–is tragic, does it really warrant the coverage that it received? Not only did it receive this 551-word story, but it also appeared on the front-page. The article was accompanied by two photos, one which took up a significant portion of the front-page with firefighters examining the SUV and another featuring the child and his mother.

Story:

By John Agar

KENT CITY — Nothing rattles 5-month-old Quinn Fox. Not the lights from the television and still cameras, nor the strangers with notepads who disturbed his afternoon nap.

“Our son is so happy right now,” said his mother, Kim Fox.

The infant’s first press conference Wednesday was nothing compared to his harrowing experience at 9:18 the night before, when an SUV blasted into the front of the family’s house on Fruit Ridge Avenue NW. It stopped, its wheels still spinning, a foot from his crib. Quinn was covered in debris but unhurt.

His mother, still shaken hours later, didn’t want to even think about what could have happened.

“It’s just a miracle, an absolute miracle,” she said.

She and her husband, Neven, had just put their kids, including 17-month-old Isabella, to bed when they heard a “big boom” on the baby monitor. Quinn’s cries followed.

The parents got out of bed and saw a panel covering a crawl space had fallen. They thought it odd, and figured that was the source of the noise. They weren’t overly concerned until they got downstairs.

In their son’s room, they saw pieces of drywall, window screens, glass and wood everywhere.

“There was all kind of debris, and dust was just flying all over the place,” Neven Fox said.

It covered the little boy and his crib. In her bare feet, the mother ran to her son, stepping on broken glass and metal, and got him out of his crib.

“My wife was saying, ‘My baby, my baby,'” the father said. “That was really frantic.”

He checked to see whether anything was in his son’s mouth, but it looked clear.

He didn’t have a scratch. They ran upstairs to check on their daughter. She was asleep.

Once the parents knew their children were OK, the father realized, “I’ve got three-quarters of a truck inside of our kid’s bedroom.”

As headlights shined into his house, he asked the driver if she was OK and told her to cut the engine. She was trapped, her SUV’s roof crushed. Firefighters soon got her out.

Kent County sheriff’s deputies arrested the 49-year-old Bailey woman for drunken driving after she was treated for minor injuries. She is to be arraigned Nov. 19 in Rockford District Court.

The driver told police she was heading north when she swerved to avoid a deer, veered across the road and drove across the Foxes’ front yard. A motorist told the Foxes the Bailey woman’s vehicle nearly crashed head-on into his.

The driver’s husband showed up and apologized.

The couple said they hold no ill will toward the driver.

“We’re just thankful our son is with us, and it wasn’t his time to go,” his mother said. “I just think that God didn’t want it to go that extra foot.”

Kim Fox, a kindergarten teacher at North Godwin Elementary School, figured she had a good excuse for missing conferences Wednesday. Her husband, a financial representative, stayed home, too.

They are staying with Kim’s sister’s family for now. Their house, including an office, has extensive damage.

That can be repaired, Kim Fox said.

Her son, nicknamed “Mr. Quinn,” has always been “such a good little one.”

She planned to save newspaper clippings, and tape news accounts, for her son when he’s older.

“It beats my scrapbook I’ve been working on.”