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'I was sitting there doing my crossword'

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Ronald Rouleau stands in front of his home's front room, which was destroyed, just hours after the crash. (Lebanon Voice/Harrison Thorp photo)

EAST ROCHESTER - Ronald Rouleau wasn't expecting company Saturday morning at his Highland Street home. But around 10 a.m. he got some nonetheless.

"I was sitting there doing my crossword with my coffee," he said. "I didn't see it coming. All I heard was a bang."

The bang was a 1996 Saturn SL sedan crashing into his front room, and him. Rouleau was knocked some 15 feet to the other side of the room. He doesn't remember anything until two men pulled him from the rubble and got him outside.

"I wound up on the other side of the room. They thought I was a goner," he said. "They thought I was dead."

The most miraculous thing was that Rouleau was sitting no more than two feet from the initial point of impact, sitting at his desk like he does every morning, drinking his coffee and doing the crossword.

Police arrested the driver of the Saturn, James Curit, 29 of Rochester, for driving drunk. He was charged with aggravated DWI.

Police say he was traveling eastbound on Highland Street when the Saturn crossed into the westbound lane before crashing into Rouleau's 65 Highland St. home where he's lived since 1962.

Scene of Saturday's crash into 65 Highland St. in East Rochester. The owner of the house, Ronald Rouleau, was sitting at his desk at the point of impact and thrown some 15 feet to the right side of his front room. The driver was charged with aggravated DWI. (Rochester Police photo)

Curit and a passenger, Ashley Maclean of Sanford, Maine, along with Rouleau, were all transported to Frisbie Memorial Hospital with nonlife-threatening injuries.

Miraculously, Rouleau suffered only a cut on his chin and some bruises on his legs.

He remembers nothing about the crash, itself. "I guess I blacked out," he said. "I was very, very lucky."

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