Police: Intoxicated Driver Puts His Vehicle 'Out To Pasture'

On July 26th at approximately 11:42 p.m., East Haddam police were dispatched to the area of Maple Avenue and Town Street (Route 151) in East Haddam to investigate what a caller had described as a noise that sounded like a motor-vehicle crash.

Upon arrival, police were unable to locate a vehicle, but discovered that damage had been done to the cow pasture fence at . A license plate believed to be the one from the evading vehicle was located in the field.

According to Anita Ballek, owner of the property, this is not the first time an incident like this has occurred, and it has happened several times over the years.

"I can hear cars racing up and down the main road and through some of the side streets all night long, after midnight and sometimes at two or three in the morning.  The noise and commotion echoes up the road to the house and through my bedroom window, although I've learned to pretty much 'turn most of it off' at this point," she said.

"The pasture fence has been damaged before. Someone will come racing down Daniels Road (an area side street) not stopping for the stop sign, cross the road (Route 151) and drive right into the fence," Ballek explained.

Ballek said that a witness who had been traveling along Town Street at the time of the accident actually saw the car that hit the fence, going through the stop sign located on Daniels Road at what appeared to be a fairly high rate of speed. The vehicle then impacted the fence and continued for a distance through the pasture to the area of the main gate, taking down another section of fence before exiting and traveling back out onto Maple Avenue.

It was necessary to make emergency temporary repairs to the fence in the middle of the night following the accident, to prevent the possibility of any of the cows wandering out into the roadway.

About twenty minutes later that evening, at approximately 12:08 a.m., State Police were called to the scene of another crash that took place on Bashan Road in East Haddam, in the area of Daniel Peck Road. The car involved was determined to be the same vehicle involved in the earlier accident, a white 2001 Chevy Malibu, based on the license plate found at the first accident scene.

James Apgar, 40, of 8 Elm Street, Deep River, told police that he had swerved to avoid hitting a deer before his vehicle left the roadway and passed through some brush and small trees, before finally coming to rest against a stone wall.

Apgar was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs and failure to drive upon the right by state police.

East Haddam police issued Apgar infractions for failure to obey a stop sign and evading the scene of an accident, related to the first incident. No injuries were reported. The cows in the field were unharmed.

Apgar was processed at Troop K in Colchester, then later released on a $2,500 non-surety bond. He was given a court date of 8/15/11 at Middlesex Superior Court in Middletown.