University sophomore Daniel Morris ran toward a white Jeep Grand Cherokee that was quickly filling with thick smoke after its driver jumped the curb, plowed over a tree and hit Agate Hall. The car began backing up as Morris opened the passenger side door and dove for the keys, begging the driver to get out of the car in fear it was going to erupt in flames.
The driver, 20-year-old University junior Mackenzie Smith, pled with Morris in between sobs, wanting to pull her car to the curb as Department of Public Safety officers arrived on the scene at 12:48 a.m. Friday morning.
“I just wanted her to stop driving so she wouldn’t kill herself. That was my main concern, or (kill) other people,” Morris said.
Smith was charged with driving under the influence, minor in possession, reckless driving and driving without a license, said Melinda Kletzok, a spokesperson for Eugene Police Department. Kletzok said Smith was detained and released.
Morris said he was walking home Thursday night when he heard a crash and saw a jeep smash into two parked cars and a tree on Emerald Street heading toward 18th Avenue.
As he approached the car he said it backed away and turned right on 18th Avenue at a fast speed before flying down 18th Avenue, plowing over another tree and rolling into the front of Agate Hall.
“I thought to myself ‘she’s gonna hit somebody,’” Morris said of the moment before Smith hit the building.
Afraid she was going to take off and crash again, Morris ran over to the car, which was backing up for a second time.
“At that point I saw tons of smoke coming out of the hood,” he said. “So I reached in the driver’s side and pulled out the keys.”
Morris said the inside of the car began to fill with smoke quickly, and he was worried it might explode.
“I started begging her to get out of the car and she started crying,” he said.
DPS arrived a moment later and Smith was compliant and very upset, Morris said.
“She seemed to be in complete and utter shock and didn’t know what happened,” he said.
Morris said he didn’t know if Smith was intoxicated.
Sergeant Chris Phillips of DPS said all three officers on duty that night responded to the front lawn of Agate Hall, where a car remained and a driver had run into a tree after hitting “a couple cars.”
Smith, a junior majoring in psychology, said she wouldn’t comment on the incident because of legal reasons.
She did say, however, she was driving Thursday night and was attacked by two men.
“I would absolutely like to share my story and warn other women about the two men that attacked me, but until I have dealt with all my legal obligations I feel it would be best for me to not speak publicly,” she wrote in a Facebook message.
When asked if the attack and drunk driving incident were related, Smith replied they were, but she did not say whether she was intoxicated.
“It is all related. The attack was the reason I was driving,” she wrote.
A brown circle of dirt remains where the tree once stood in front of Agate Hall, a couple of feet from the curb.
Wayne Lapre, who lives right across the street from where the accident took place, said Eugene Police Department cars, DPS and fire trucks were at the scene when he arrived home around 1 a.m. on Friday.
“Apparently a young female college student, who was drunk, plowed into a couple cars and hit the tree,” he said, pointing at the site of the crash, about 50 feet away from his first floor apartment.
Lapre said the front end of the crashed Jeep, “was smashed in (and) the airbags were popped,” he said.
Smith, who will turn 21 in September, graduated from South Eugene High School in 2004 and is also studying business administration.
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