DANVILLE, Ind. — Caleb Needham was driving to his parents' home after visiting haunted houses early Sunday morning when the real terror struck.
A pumpkin, believed to have been tossed from an Interstate 70 overpass, crashed through the Indiana State University student’s windshield, missing him by inches, WXIN reported.
“I just started shaking because I guess I was so scared,” Needham told the TV station.
“I entered like a shocked state. I’m like, ‘What just happened? Where did this pumpkin come from?’ I could honestly just have died right there,” he added.
According to WISH-TV, Needham said he noticed the large truck in front of him swerve just before he went under the overpass and saw pumpkin splattered in the road. Within seconds, another gourd landed on his passenger seat, and he deduced the pumpkins were being hurled from the overpass.
“(Pumpkin projectiles) can be deadly, and we’ve seen that before, and we really want people to understand the potential ramifications that can come from throwing something at a moving car,” Indiana State Police Sgt. John Perrine told WISH-TV.
The uninjured Needham told WXIN that authorities told him had the pumpkin smashed through his side of the windshield, he “probably would have died.”
Perrine reminded both the suspects and any would-be copycats that his office takes the matter “very seriously.”
“This is a criminal act that could have criminal consequences, and so we want people to know this is a very serious offense to do that. You could kill somebody,” he told WXIN.