‘The car was fully flipped’
A woman is dead after her vehicle smashed into the veranda of a house leaving a trail of rubble behind as it fell to the ground down a steep bank.
It ended up resting upside down near a tree in the backyard of a Kelston, west Auckland, home.
In spite of the efforts of rescuers the woman couldn’t be saved. She was the car’s only occupant.
Police say the crash happened about 3.30pm on October 19 when the white vehicle drove onto a property on Aronui Terrace in Kelston. The vehicle rolled down a bank, ending up on its roof.
Police on the scene say it appeared the driver had suffered a medical emergency.
This led to the crash, police say. The woman died at the scene.
Her body was removed from the scene about 7pm, with family members present. The vehicle was also removed.
Despite the damage to the property, no-one else was injured.
An autopsy was conducted on the dead woman on October 20, police at the scene said.
The damaged house was being boarded up, and the occupant stayed elsewhere overnight, police say.
A teenager walking home from school says he saw the crash.
Dev Solanki, who lives near the property, says the ‘‘car was fully flipped over’’.
‘‘We came inside our house and got a clear view of the crash,’ the 15-year-old says.
‘‘The car was fully flipped over and the balcony above it was broken.’’
‘‘I think it happened five minutes before we saw it when I walked past at about 3.30pm, because police were already there and we could hear all the cars coming.’’
Emergency services including the New Zealand Fire Service and St John Ambulance, were at at the scene as was the Police Serious Crash Unit. A New Zealand Fire Service spokesman says emergency services had worked to free the woman.
A person who answered the phone at the house where the crash happened hung up without making any comment.
NZME reported that the woman was understood to be a resident on the street. A man, visibly upset, was heard telling someone on the phone: ‘‘My mum’s passed away, man.’’