Teens die after car flips, hits dwelling

Samuel M. Rednour woke from a deep sleep early Sunday to a sound "like the whole house blowed up."He dashed to his living room in Fruitland Park to find a car axle and wheel had smashed through his front door, splintering the wood. On his lawn lay a critically injured teen and the mangled remains of a Pontiac Grand Prix, along with torn-up dirt, sod and vegetation and broken bricks from his house. What he couldn't know at the time was that a second teen had crashed through the roof of his house and lay dying on the rafters in his attic."I'd never seen anything like it," said the 78-year-old retired postman. "There was mud and glass and blood."He would later learn that two Lake County residents, Aaron L. Porter, 19, of Fruitland Park and Kenneth Levi Vandergriff, 16, of Leesburg were fatally injured.Both were thrown from the 1996 Pontiac as it rolled off of Lake Unity Road in Fruitland Park about 2 a.m. Sunday, said Sgt. Jorge Delahoz of the Florida Highway Patrol.It appears that the car went off the road, and the driver, Porter, overcorrected and the car started flipping over, taking out a small palm tree as it careened for 700 feet. The FHP estimated the car was going at least 90 mph.Firefighters and police found Porter in the attic after failing to find him outside, Rednour said."The firemen took him out through the roof outside," he said. "It was terrible."Both youths were airlifted to Orlando Regional Medical Center, Delahoz said.Emergency-room doctors pronounced Kenneth dead at 6:50 a.m. and pronounced Porter dead 17 minutes later, FHP reports said.The families of the two victims could not be reached for comment Sunday.Officials think Kenneth was a student at Leesburg High School and that Porter left that school a year ago.Delahoz said investigators think the pair were leaving a party at a private residence and that investigators believe alcohol, along with excessive speed, was a factor in the accident. The car was traveling at least twice the posted 45 mph limit. Neither was wearing a seat belt.Rednour said that he's complained for years about people speeding on Lake Unity Road."Sometimes people are probably going 110 [mph]," he said. "I always thought somebody might hit the house someday. But not like this."

Rich McKay of the Orlando Sentinel Staff

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