An off-duty Franklin Township firefighter is dead after losing control of his truck, hitting a car and slamming into an Indianapolis strip club. Nobody else was seriously injured.
David Joseph Newsom, 34, was driving south on Madision Ave. at around 6:30 p.m. Sunday when a State Trooper clocked him going 81 mph by Manuel High School. The trooper tried to pull Newsom over, but he soon hit a curb and lost control. His truck then hit a car, snapped a utility pole and slammed into Club Zeus Showclub. Newsom was thrown from his vehicle. He was unresponsive at the scene and later died at Wishard Hospital. Investigators still don't know why Newsom, a firefighter for 8 1/2 years, was speeding or what caused him to lose control.
Brandi Parks and Mason Tate were waiting at a stoplight with their young boys at an intersection when they saw Newsom's truck fly past them and accelerate before losing control.
"He clipped a car, hit a telephone pole and then took out a telephone pole," Mason Tate said. "He had to have been doing at least 95 or 100 miles per hour."
"The moment he hit that telephone pole and that pole went down the truck instantly veered into club Zeus," Brandi Parks said. "I mean, there was no driver in it."
Brandi is a medical assistant and a former EMT and as the first on scene, she began to check on people in the area including those in the club.
"At first it was just really loud because we were playing really loud and then it was just a big, bright flash and a huge explosion," said Lee Mylin, who was playing with his band when the truck slammed into the building and onto the stage.
Lee says two of his bandmates were hit by flying debris. One was taken to the hospital with minor injuries, but he says he still can't believe no one inside was seriously hurt.
"If that guy had gone maybe a foot the other way you know it probably would have taken out three of us for sure," Mylin said.
"It was just crazy. We all got really lucky."
Brandi says the same goes for the woman driving the car, which Newsom initially hit. Despite a big impact both she and her two young boys were unharmed and refused medical attention.
"I'm not sure if it spun her fully around or just halfway but I know she was pretty shaken up," Parks said.
"Somebody had to have been with her, seriously, somebody had to have been with us too because one moment sooner and it could have been us and her. You never know."
No one else was seriously injured.
Newsom had been a firefighter in Franklin Township for nearly nine years.
