Cops: Worker drained pool on road, caused crashes
Jan 10, 2014, 4:33 PM
NORWALK, Conn. (AP) – A Connecticut pool company worker has been arrested after police say he caused chaos when he drained a swimming pool onto a road in freezing temperatures and several vehicles crashed on the icy street. No one was seriously hurt.
Norwalk police charged city resident Alfredo Bahena-Benitez, 34, with misdemeanor reckless endangerment Thursday. He works for Swimm Pool & Patio in Darien.
Officers were called to a car accident on Flax Hill Road on Thursday morning, after Bahena-Benitez had emptied the pool by running a hose to the street, just uphill from an “S” curve and the scene of the accidents, police said. The water gushed down the hill, froze and created an icy sheen, authorities said.
“The ice was so vast that even responding officers initially had difficulty getting close to the accident scene,” police Lt. Paul Resnick said in a statement.
A woman’s car slid into a guardrail on the curvy, hilly section of the road. Then a sport utility vehicle spun out and was hit by a car. Then another vehicle struck the SUV and hit an oncoming city plow and salt truck, police said. The truck was headed to the scene to treat the road.
A 54-year-old woman who was driving the vehicle that hit the plow truck was brought to a hospital with injuries and discharged later in the day.
Bahena-Benitez was released on $1,000 bail and ordered to appear in Norwalk Superior Court on Jan. 21. He couldn’t be reached for comment Friday. There’s no phone listing for him and it’s not clear if he has a lawyer.
A woman who answered the phone at Swimm Pool & Patio on Friday said the company had no comment.
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