Cheerleaders’ cheer gets hit-and-run driver arrested
Published: August 9, 2005
They didn’t have a pen or paper handy.
So, Kimmie Ostrowski and the other members of the Lincoln High School varsity cheerleading squad did what came naturally when a driver fled the scene after causing a chain-reaction car crash Wednesday near the University of Michigan campus: They turned the license plate numbers into a cheer.
And they cheered and cheered and cheered, committing the license plate to memory for police while their coaches rendered aid to a woman injured in the crash at Packard and Thompson streets.
“We just started to chant it so we’d remember it and help them get the guy,” said Ostrowski, a senior captain, who with junior co-captain Amy Sirois led the nine-member squad’s impromptu performance until the Ann Arbor Police arrived.
The team was one of 12 high school junior varsity and varsity cheerleading squads from around southeast Michigan and northern Ohio participating in the Universal Cheerleaders Association’s four-day Cheer Camp at U-M.
The officers traced the license plate to an Ann Arbor home where the driver once lived. They then obtained his new Ann Arbor address and confronted him there late Wednesday afternoon, said Lt. Mike Logghe. The 30-year-old man was not arrested, but could face misdemeanor charges for leaving the scene of an accident once the report is forwarded to the Ann Arbor City Attorney’s Office.
Police reports indicate the man’s truck hit the rear of a car stopped at the traffic light at 5:35 p.m. The impact pushed that car into another vehicle, which then hit another one, Logghe said. The driver of the first car that was struck, a 32-year-old Ann Arbor woman, was injured and treated at the scene by paramedics with Huron Valley Ambulance.
Patricia Clark, the squad’s coach, said the woman hit her head on the steering wheel and her knee on the dashboard due to the impact, which crushed the trunk of her sedan. She said she used some of the girls’ frozen water bottles to soothe the victim while she called police, shouting out the part of the license plate number she could see to the cheerleaders. They stepped into the street to take note of the entire plate.
“We thought he was going to pull over to get out of the truck, but he just bailed, and we were like, ‘No way!’ ” said Jennifer Smith, 16.
Logghe said the man told officers he did not think the damage was severe enough to stop and reconsidered on his way home, but did not turn around due to heavy traffic.
Coach Clark said it was a bit more than what the girls bargained for when they raised the money to attend the camp through a series of car washes and sponsorships from local businesses. But they learned a valuable lesson, nonetheless.
“Teamwork is what we’re learning here and it took a lot of it very quickly to get him caught. I’m very proud of them,” she said.
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