A runaway Ford Tempo drew some strange looks and a few cameras Monday when it rolled into Lake Laverne from its parking spot on the west side of the Memorial Union.

The driver of the car, Allison Hakes, said she thought she put on the emergency brake when she parked the car at the northern meter closest to the lake. However, she said she came out of the Union about 30 minutes later to find the car’s front end emerged in the lake.

The car apparently rolled from its spot in the semi-circular drive and made a beeline across Morrill Road, passing through the break in the curb normally used by handicapped pedestrians. The car had enough momentum to run over the shrubbery on the lake’s bank and lodge itself at the water’s edge.

No one was hurt.

The car belongs to senior Angela Hopkey. Hopkey let Hakes borrow her car to run an errand.

“So, I’m thinking my friend’s going to kill me,” Hakes, a junior in biology, said. “I thought I [put the brake on], but maybe it didn’t stick.”

Damage to the car is estimated at $500, said Mike Louis, owner of Mike Louis Body, Paint, Towing and Sandblasting, whom Hakes called to drag the car out of the lake.

“It could have been a lot worse. It was only halfway in, but water was all the way up to the seat,” Louis said.

Louis said he was waiting for the go-ahead to begin work on the car as of Monday afternoon.

“Right now, we’re going to clean it out, get the fish smell out,” he said. “Obviously, it will be cheaper the sooner we can get started on it. It does damage by the hour, since it’s water.”

Hopkey could not be reached for comment.

Joel Swanson, an officer with the Department of Public Safety, said he responded to a call at about 11:40 a.m. from a Cy-Ride driver who noticed the car in the lake.

“They’ll have to go through the engine and drain the fluids,” Swanson said.

Swanson said this is not the first time a car has landed in Lake Laverne. He recalled a water-logged car a few years ago during Veishea.

“One of them nights, they had a car that was stolen from the Ames area, and we got a call. The car was in the lake with the doors open and the headlights on,” he said. That time, Swanson said, the car was driven into the lake intentionally.