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Car crashes into house

Sep 5, 2007 | Ian Willis | HartlePool Mail

A woman says she is lucky to be alive after a car crashed into the front wall of her house and sent glass and bricks just inches away from where she was sitting.
As reported in today's Mail, a Vauxhall Omega car smashed through the garden wall of the home in St Paul's Road, Hartlepool, before ploughing into the front of the property.

Michelle Lennox, 42, was playing on her PlayStation with boyfriend Michael Sparks and pal Bryan Binyon when the accident happened at 11pm on Tuesday night.

Michelle said: "I always sit in a rocking chair in the bay window at the front of the house, right next to the window.

"I saw the headlights coming down the street and heard the screeching of brakes. The next thing I knew the chair I was sitting on had been moved across the room and there wall from underneath the window had collapsed around my feet.

"It was terrifying, there was just a massive bang.

"I think myself lucky that the garden wall took the impact first, because if the car had gone straight into the front of the house I would have been killed."

Deano Westall, 29, rents the room upstairs and described the impact as being "like a volcano".

Deano said: "I heard the car coming racing down Hutton Avenue, and I actually got up and looked out of the window so I saw it come through the wall and into the house.

"The whole house shook, it was like a volcano. I raced downstairs to where the other three were and to be honest we're lucky we're not talking about people being killed."

Police, the ambulance service and two fire crews from Stranton Fire Station were all called to the scene while gas board officials also had to attend as it was initially thought a pipe may have been fractured by the smash's impact.

The driver of the vehicle was detained by police overnight and was due to be questioned later today.

The car remained wedged into the rubble underneath the bay window this morning while checks were carried out to make the property safe.

The occupants had been rehoused overnight by council officials.