BILLINGS — A Billings Heights family woke up to an unusual surprise when a nearly 12-foot section of fence was found wedged under their son's parked car a few hundred yards away.
Brad Pinnick said a knock at the door alerted them to the situation.
Watch Heights residents talk about the fence mayhem:
"Somebody rang the doorbell about just before eight o'clock this morning," Pinnick said Friday.
The news was not what they were expecting.
"When they said, 'Hey, did you see your car out here?' And we're like, 'Oh no, what happened?'" Pinnick said.
Outside, Pinnick found the fence lodged under the vehicle.
"It's probably a 10 to 12 foot section of fence there," Pinnick said.
The fence appears to have come from the area in Billings Heights where former Bakken man camps were stored in preparation for conversion into affordable housing. Neighbor Blake Whitebear said he could not believe what he was seeing.
"I came out for a cigarette, and yeah, somebody came down and ran down that fence and asked my maintenance guys about it. And they said, yeah, drunk guy came and ran it down," Whitebear said.
Neighbors say a driver may have plowed through the fence before dragging it through the neighborhood.
"Allegedly they hit other vehicles or something or took part of the gate with them and then struck a vehicle or two," Whitebear said.
Questions quickly arose about how the fence ended up where it did.
"I don't know if they realized that this fence was on there and then drove down our street, and I don't know if it swung around or what it did and then just wedged under the car," Pinnick said.
The drive from the original fence site to the home where the car was parked is less than a minute.
Pinnick described what he believes happened.
"So somebody, whether inebriated or not, must have driven in there, whether willingly or not, and caught that piece of fence. Must have tore it off of the greater length of it and then drove out of it because you could see there's other pieces of the fence that are knocked down and then drove around," Pinnick said.
Neighbors say it is hard to believe the driver made it through the area without causing more damage.
"How he didn't crash into any other car is so crazy to me," Whitebear said.
Billings police say they are aware of the incident but have not yet been able to identify who is responsible. The investigation is ongoing.
Fortunately, damage to the car was minimal.
"Thankfully, there was only just a small scratch on the bumper and nothing underneath," Pinnick said.
