Woman hit by firecracker at DeKalb County intersection shut down by illegal street racers

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. - Cell phone video captured pure chaos at a DeKalb County intersection Saturday night where witnesses said a group of illegal street racers could be seen racing, lighting firecrackers and setting the street itself on fire.

Tire marks on the road and firecracker wrappers scattered across the intersection of Hugh Howell Road and Lilburn-Stone Mountain Road were all that was left of what John Childs and his wife Susan described as nothing they’d ever seen before.

"This was dangerous, I mean they were setting fires in the street, cars were on fire," he told FOX 5.

(Photo submitted by family)

"It was just chaos," Susan Berry recalled. "People got out of their cars, people were running from the gas station, people were running down 78 all directions."

Berry said she was picking her husband up from work when she started recording video of traffic at a stand still while a crowd of hundreds shut down the street.

"There was a time where they were, like, pouring gas on the road and throwing matches and the cars were doing donuts," Berry said.

"One gentleman tried to approach our car. Of course, we had two babies in the car, so at that point we pulled through. As we were going through, somebody shot my wife with a bottle rocket," Childs added.

Childs said they tried to call 911 but were put on hold.

While Berry told FOX 5 she was glad neither of her children were hurt, her husband said he hopes to see police more closely monitoring online activity related to large gatherings like the one they saw.

"For that many people to show up to one area, obviously there had to have been prior notice," he stated.