MUNSTER | As she was driving south Friday night on Calumet Avenue, Angee Garcia wasn't sure what the "two little lights" were so nearly in front of her.
The Highland resident certainly had no idea they were the beams of a small twin-engine plane that was about to crash about 30 feet in front of her car.
Garcia was on her way to dinner, passing the Community Veterans Memorial when she first saw the beams.
"I wasn't sure what it was, but it was really, really low," she said. The plane then landed, hard and fast, in front of her, forcing her to brake.
"That was so close, oh my God," she said.
The bottom of the plane stared back at her and her daughter, 10-year-old Desiree.
"She's OK, just incredibly shaken up," Garcia said of her daughter. "She was crying; we were both crying.
"My first instinct was there's more coming," she said. "I just kept thinking more is coming."
Garcia said she called 911, telling the emergency operator what she herself could not believe.
"I told them, 'A plane just crashed in front of my car,'" she said. "I was so freaked out, I couldn't think if I was in Munster or Dyer. They hadn't heard about it at that point."
Garcia said she was the only car on the road near the accident site. "There were cars behind me, but they weren't that close to me," she said. The relatively empty road made it easy for Garcia to swerve into the opposite lane.
"There were no flames, it didn't explode or anything," Garcia said. "But it was literally straight nose dive into the ground.
"The debris went everywhere."
Garcia said she drove over a small piece of the plane.
She said she did not see either of the passengers of the plane. Her radio on, she heard no noise, and her car did not shake, she said.
Garcia said she was so scared, she forgot all about her plans to eat at the Chili's restaurant in Dyer, and she drove to her brother's house in Highland.
"I felt like I did a hit-and-run because I just took off," she said.
She was thankful she took an extra moment looking at the restaurant's menu online before heading out to dinner.
Said Garcia: "I just keep thinking what if I didn't do that ..."
