Man Injured When He Struck His Own House With Car

An Effingham man was injured Wednesday afternoon when he drove his wife's car into the side of their house.

87-year-old Joe Milchman was making way for the gas man at his home at Kagay and 4th. Milchman moved his car out of the driveway and was attempting to move his wife's car when the incident occurred.

Milchman's wife, Marjorie, who was home at the time, said her husband wasn't familiar with how to operate her car, but no one is certain what happened. Milchman rather than backing out of the driveway, accelerated forward and out of the driveway into a vacant lot to the west. The car came back around and onto Kagay then circled back to the house but instead of going into the driveway, the car hit the side of the Milchman house. The impact left a large hole on the south side of the house, with the front of the vehicle ending up in the den of the home. Milchman's grandson, Mark Jones, said at the scene that his grandfather, a well-known area basketball fan, had watched many ballgames in the room that was damaged.

(THE GAPING HOLE THAT REMAINED AFTER THE CAR HAD BEEN PULLED OUT OF THE HOUSE)

Joe Milchman suffered scalp injuries and was taken to HSHS St. Anthony's Memorial Hospital in Effingham to be examined. The family was working to get the hole covered considering the rainy forecast. Mark Jones' father, Joe Milchman's son-in-law, is the Industrial Arts teacher at Stewardson-Strasburg High School. He said he had just installed the windows on that side of the house a couple of years ago when the house was re-sided and re-roofed.