A Maytown woman got a shock Sunday morning when a sport utility vehicle plowed into the front of her house.

Cory M. Minnich, 25, of East Park Street in Elizabethtown, crashed his blue Ford Explorer into 170 S. River St. about 6:45 a.m., Susquehanna Regional police said.

By the time resident Mary Lounagy, a senior citizen, made it downstairs, the driver and a passenger had fled the scene, she told reporters. The vehicle's left front end punched through her dining room wall, leaving a jagged hole and a litter of bricks, masonry and shards of drywall. Police tracked the pair's fresh footprints through the snow. They led away from the house through Maytown and ended behind Maytown Elementary School, a little more than half a mile away. Officers learned someone had picked up the two there, according to a criminal complaint.

Susquehanna Regional and Elizabethtown police traced the vehicle to a house on Spruce Street in Elizabethtown, and Minnich was arrested there, police said. His companion was not arrested, nor was the person who provided the ride. Minnich was charged with one count each of careless driving, causing a crash involving property damage, failing to notify police of an accident and leaving the scene.

Minnich also was charged with driving with a suspended license. He had three prior convictions for that offense, police said. He was arraigned Wednesday before District Judge William G. Reuter in Mount Joy and sent to Lancaster County Prison in lieu of $2,000 cash bail.

E-mail: tstuhldreher@lnpnews.com