Teen flips car in rural Allen County, walks home

ALLEN COUNTY, Ind. (WANE) - Officers from the Allen County Sheriff's Department combed through the woods and corn fields in northwest Allen County looking for a 17-year-old boy who flipped his car and ran before help arrived early Friday morning.

He was later found safely at home. 

According to Corporal Cook of the Allen County Sheriff's Department, the teenager was driving east on Miller Road when he failed to negotiate the turn in the road onto Wesley Chapel Road.

Cook said the driver then walked about 200 yards to a farm house and asked to use the phone. Cook said the boy called his mother and waited outside the house. The residents told police when the boy saw arriving emergency personnel, he took off.

Cook said upwards of twenty people were looking for the boy at one time, including several K-9 units and a couple of coon hunters who had dogs with them. Officers searched an area near the accident which is primarily a corn field and wooded area.

The boy's mother was at the scene of the accident and waiting for him to return to the house.

Cook said while they have not entirely ruled out alcohol, they don't believe it to be a factor in the crash. He said he did not smell alcohol in the car and the residents of the home where the boy called his mother from did not smell it either.

Cook did caution that the air bag did deploy in the vehicle and the smell from that deployment may have overtaken any smell of alcohol.

The boy's cell phone was found in the car.