JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Some of you will remember the incident, must have been at least 25 years ago now, when an 18-wheeler barreled down the 20th Street ramp off southbound I-35 and crashed into a small house situated at the bottom of the hill and squarely in line with the end of the ramp.

The truck smashed into the house, and a child who was sleeping — I believe in a second floor bedroom — was killed.

It was an incredible fluke — that lone house standing in the path of the truck and the truck plowing into it — and I remember that at The Star we played the story across the top of the front page the next day.

A big element of the story was the truck’s brakes. The driver claimed that the brakes failed. (I also remember we, the paper, made a big mistake, writing that the truck had air brakes, which it didn’t. That caused a lot of consternation and hand wringing in the newsroom, and we had to correct that on the front page the following day.)

Tests were run on the brakes, however, and they tested fine. So it was probably a case of the driver either not paying attention, speeding, underestimating the distance it would take him to stop at the bottom of the hill — or a combination of those factors.

Now, in another example of a driver claiming brake failure, we’ve got a horrible case of a driver going out of control, careening along a sidewalk at highway speeds, smashing into a 14-year-old middle-school student and killing her.

That story sounded bad enough when The Star first reported the April 12 crash. But it took on greater significance yesterday, when a police report came out saying that the out-of-control car barely missed three other children, whom a crossing guard had just ushered across the street at 124th.

The degree of incongruity is one element that raises or lowers the shock value of a story, and this one ranks very high because the incident occurred at 125th and Switzer Road, in far southwestern Johnson County — where many people go to live to escape the, uh, unpredictability of close-in living.

Two Blue Valley schools in the area — Oak Hill Elementary and Oxford Middle — were getting out, and children were walking, crossing streets and getting picked up by their parents. All hell broke loose when a 2006 Ford Taurus being driven by a 70-year-old man came careening north on Switzer, actually by that point on the sidewalk!

Besides hitting the 14-year-old girl — Alexandra Rumple, an Oxford student — the car hit a telephone cable box, a pole with a traffic light, a speed limit sign and a fence post. Then, the car plowed down about 80 feet of the fence before coming to a stop.

The fence

The Star’s story doesn’t say exactly how long the path of destruction was, but the middle school is at 125th Street, and the car came to a stop near 123rd Street.

The driver, Sudhir S. Gandhi of Lenexa told police he remembered driving near West 129th Street and Switzer and that someone was in the roadway. Quoting The Star’s story, “He said he tried to stop, but the brakes were not working and he continued north until he hit the fence.”

Police said they believed the car first went off the roadway near 127th Street. Gandhi was taken to a hospital because he may have lost consciousness while driving. (I don’t believe he was admitted.)

The Taurus

…Well, clearly, like the incident many years ago on the 20th Street ramp, this was not a case of brake failure. Tests will undoubtedly confirm that.

Gandhi had a valid driver’s license and showed no evidence of impairment. But something happened to him. And, obviously, he had his foot on the gas pedal while the chaos was unfolding. That car was not coasting when it traveled four blocks and took out property and a human life.

Trouble can come in a second. It can come at the bottom of a ramp in a poor section of town, or it can happen in well-to-do, normally serene Blue Valley.

Thank God more children were not struck on April 12.

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I was sorry to read in The Star that Henry Bloch died today. What a blessing he was to Kansas City. What an institution he was. I met him once or twice, the first time when I was assigned to cover a Jewel Ball at the Nelson Art Gallery decades ago. I was fascinated to listen to his easy conversation and watch him move around in a high-society situation that was totally natural to him. One of the last times I saw him was more than 20 years ago at the Cinemark on the Plaza. He was having trouble getting around on one or more balky knees. It went through my mind that the famous Mr. Bloch was getting old…He pushed on nicely, though, and made it to age 96…I knew his brother, Richard, better. I was covering City Hall in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when Richard and his wife, Annette, gave $1 million to the Parks Department for creation of the Cancer Survivors Park on the west side of the Plaza. I remember he wanted the amount of the gift to be a secret, but I got a tip on it and put it in the paper. He was peeved. No matter; he and his wife deserved the credit. Richard died in 2004. I believe Annette might still be alive.