Seacliff Village's fire hydrant
published Sunday, 18. August 2024
This incident occurred after the evening hours on Wednesday, 14. August 2024.

As I wrapped up my data-taking for yesterday's release, I decided to eat McDonald's Filet-o-Fish and cookie. I could have driven to a McDonald's location closer to me near the intersection of Westminster and Goldenwest, but I felt like driving a longer distance at this time of night. So, I drove to the location at Seacliff Village on Yorktown between Main and Goldenwest. Upon arrival, I'd noticed a lot of water gushing down the main circulation road. However, I ignored it and continued to park anyway.

After receiving my food and walking through the door, I saw a lot of people standing around in front of the LA Fitness building on top of the police presence. I also noticed a male teen—if I observed correctly—sitting on a planter kerb, looking sullen. A teen girl—if I observed correctly—approached and sat with him as I drove from my parking spot, appearing to console the boy. At this point, a lot of the original bystanders had dispersed.

I wanted to see more of what happened to satisfy my curiosity, and the police hadn't closed off the area yet, so I circled around to the accident area. A tow truck arrived by the time I could see what had really happened. What I'd seen was a Jeep Wrangler YJ Convertible trapped between two palm trees and on top of a fire hydrant, which was the source of the leaking water. I did not see a presence from the fire department whilst I was at the scene of the accident.

My identification of the Jeep was based solely on pictures I could find from Wikipedia. The "Wrangler" labelling on the rear corners of the vehicle helped the most, as it appeared to be the only model to have such feature. The little yellow lights on the side of the vehicle near the front bumper—I don't know what they are called or what they are for—also helped with identification. Please don’t come at me if I misidentified the vehicle, I have not a single clue about Jeeps.

Just before being able to see the trapped Jeep, I saw another boy sitting like the one I'd first seen, looking rather sullen as well. I assume this one to be the driver because a policeman was standing in front of him.

I wasn't able to find anymore details of the situation. No news outlets had reported on it and the police did not publish a press release for this accident. It seems trying to access a police report for this incident seems to be too much trouble for me. I could ask the property owners for the security footage, but it seems highly unlikely that they would share it to somebody who wasn't even involved to begin with. There didn't appear to be any security cameras nearby anyway.

I just have one big question: How does one get their vehicle trapped like that? The road adjacent to the fire hydrant wasn't necessarily narrow. It's actually rather wide. You had to have been intoxicated, distracted, and speeding all at once to do that.