CLOSE CALL:
A mother feels ‘‘lucky to be alive’’ after a drunk driver ploughed into her home, metres below where she was reading.
Violet Rehu was at home with her three children aged 4, 11 and 15 when the blue Nissan Tito car came screaming around the sweeping bend in residential Huntly on Thursday morning.
‘‘A car came from Baker St, must have lost control because they were drunk drivers and smacked into my house at a really high speed,’’ she said outside her damaged home.
Moments before, Rehu had seen the lights and heard an engine revving – then the house shook.
‘‘I thought, they were moving really quick, I hope they make the corner. I heard a whole bunch of screaming and they smashed into the house.
‘‘It was like a big boom – it felt like an earthquake.’’
The impact was enough to make the neighbours run outside at 1am.
One neighbour told Rehu there had been three people in the car, one who was seen running down the road.
After Rehu called emergency services she went outside to find two people. A woman allegedly driving the vehicle and another man who seemed extremely ‘‘drunk’’, Rehu said.
‘‘She was stumbling and slurring her words. I was yelling at them asking if everyone was okay, if anyone was bleeding, hurt, if anyone was stuck in the car.’’
Waikato police communications manager Andrew McAlley said the 25-year-old female driver who claimed to be driving blew 776 micrograms (mcg) of alcohol per litre of breath, when breath-tested at the scene. The result was more than three times the legal limit of 250mcg.
She was arrested and charged with excess breath alcohol and dangerous driving, and would appear in Huntly District Court at a later date.
Rehu’s children, who had been sleeping in a bedroom at the back of the house, were uninjured and ran outside to see the car wedged underneath.
‘‘My son was like, whoa my house is crashed in, we got a new garage. They are pretty resilient.’’
It was a close call for Rehu who is thankful the lounge wasn’t on the ground level.
‘‘I’m really glad I’m alive and that no one was hurt.’’
Neighbour Terry Putu and her husband had just returned home from McDonald’s when she heard a disturbance.
‘‘It sounded like a truck was dropping its load. I said to my husband something is going on out the front, we thought it was the rubbish truck, but at 1 o’clock in the morning...’’
Her dogs were barking from the property, she said.
The family moved into the Paki St home in May. Rehu was allowed back into the home briefly after the crash to grab clothes before leaving the house in her pyjamas.
She was forced to tiptoe over the floor, which she said felt unstable. They had to stay with family for most of Thursday.
Initially, Huntly firefighters and police assessed the building and decided it was too unstable to remove the vehicle, which had struck one of the pillars underneath.
But John Hodge, owner of Harcourts Huntly, and property manager for the damaged house, said the car was removed Thursday afternoon. He also expected the family could move back into the home Thursday afternoon.
He said a council representative had visited the house and identified repairs needed to make the home safe again. A builder was making repairs.
Hodge said tyre tracks suggested the vehicle left the road in Baker St, crossed on to a reserve and crashed through a metal road sign pole before failing to negotiate the T-intersection with Paki St, which it crossed directly and ploughed into the understructure of the house in Paki St. The road sign pole which was torn out was carried over the road by the vehicle and onto the damaged house’s front section.
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