A suspected drunken driver left more than a hole in the wall when he crashed into Cooper School early Thursday morning. He provided a teachable moment for the school's students.
"It's ironic this happened," Principal Brett Brodeen said. One of the ideas staff have been trying to impress on students is taking responsibility for the choices they make every day.
"It's a valuable lesson for students to learn how the choices they make not only affect them, they can affect other people," Brodeen said.
That wasn't the principal's first thought when he got the call that there was a car in the school. Just waking up, it was more like: "Say, what?"
As he drove to the elementary school on 1807 Missouri Ave., Brodeen's mind was on was safety. Once it was determined the crash didn't compromise the building structure, the new principal focused on writing a letter for parents and preparing to reroute student traffic from the back hall where the accident occurred.
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"It doesn't interfere with too much," Brodeen said, and the 310 students in 4-year-old kindergarten through grade five seemed less fazed than staff by the incident.
The vehicle plowed into the school near the playground area off Wyoming Avenue at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, according to a Superior police report by Officer George Gothner. The driver, 22-year-old Timothy Wuethrich of Superior, fled the scene on foot, police said. Gothner caught up with him two blocks away.
Wuethrich told the officer that he crashed his girlfriend's car into the school and admitted to drinking that night. His girlfriend had sent him to a local bar to pick up the car and bring it back to their Billings Park residence, according to the report.
"He said his girlfriend was too drunk to drive and that was why he went to get the car," Gothner wrote.
The car left Wyoming Avenue, skidded across a grassy area and struck a Dumpster before hitting the school. The impact crushed both the Dumpster and the front of the car. It also knocked out a section of wall beneath a window, sending rubble and chunks of brick into the opposite wall.
Wuethrich, who was not wearing a seat belt, suffered a cut on his head and a possible broken leg, according to Sgt. Mark McGillis of the Police Department. He was transported by ambulance to a Duluth hospital, where McGillis said he was treated and released.
Wuethrich was issued citations for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated and hit and run. The car was totaled.
