Parked truck rear-ended on Fred St.

ANTIGO — An intoxicated and distracted driver rear-ended a parked vehicle and pushed it approximately 50 feet at least partly onto a front yard on Fred St. around 8 p.m. Saturday night.

According to the police report, the driver, a 20-year-old from Antigo, had turned off of 10th Ave. and had just begun traveling south on Fred St. when he struck the vehicle, another pickup truck, which was owned by a woman named Cheryl Kuehn.

Because he is under 21, the man was cited for violating absolute sobriety — he admitted to consuming alcohol at the scene — as well as inattentive driving. He apparently had been operating his cell phone when he hit the truck.

Monica Wheeler was inside her house when she heard the collision.

“I had my headphones in and I was listening to TikTok actually,” Wheeler said. “I had heard the boom of the impact, but I didn’t know that he had hit the truck. When the dog started barking, I got up to look out my other window, and that’s when I saw the black pickup truck that had been parked sitting in my yard.”

Wheeler said the volume of the crash and the damage done to the parked pick-up truck made it evident that the collision had been substantial.

“It was parked with nobody in it and he drove it up onto the curb,” she said. “He had his two driver’s side tires still parked on the road, but the other two tires were parked on my grass, and the back fender — although it was an old vehicle and pretty rusty — the back fender and tailgate on the black pickup truck that was struck was kind of butterflied in, so he struck it pretty good. But thank goodness there were no injuries or anything.”

Mike Young, who lives on the opposite side of the road from which the accident occurred, was in his side yard smoking a cigarette when he heard the loud bang.

“My truck was parked three houses down on the side of the road, so I’m in my side yard smoking and I kind of look out and see a vehicle sideways, and I’m like, ‘Oh please tell me somebody did not just hit my car,’” Young said. “I looked over to see a red pickup truck had hit another truck that was parked on the side of the road. The truck tried to keep going, and I’m assuming it was not able to go very far because it made it probably three car lengths away from the truck it hit. I watched the guy get out with a case of beer and start running down the road. Some people came out from in a house and they asked the guy if he was OK. At that point, he walked back and went back towards them.”

Both Wheeler and Young said police arrived within five minutes and began conducting field sobriety tests on the man.

“I heard that the guy had said that he didn’t see the car when he came around the corner,” Young said, “but I don’t get how you don’t see a full-size pickup parked on the side of the road.”