By Beckie Wilson
A Carterton resident had a rude awakening on Saturday night when a car ploughed into the side of his house, exposing his kitchen from the outside.
Ian Bayliss was asleep in bed just after 9pm, when a boarder staying with him woke him up saying “someone has hit your house”.
Mr Bayliss initially thought someone was throwing rocks at his house, so he put on his slippers and went outside.
“I shot around the corner, and half the wood from the fence was in the driveway. Then I look and there’s a car half-pie stuck in my wall,” he said.
Mr Bayliss said he didn’t hear the crash due to his poor hearing.
“He made a bit of a mess, he went through three fences before my house.”
It is understood the driver had suffered a medical event while in his car at the Mobil petrol station, and had crossed the north and south-bound lanes of High St, before crashing into the property.
The car had driven into Mr Bayliss’ kitchen, rammed into the sink area which gathered up the lino, and knocked the door frame out of line — “the impact was pretty damn hard.”
“Let’s put it this way. I can sit in the kitchen and I can see through to the driveway – there’s a hole in the wall.”
Bobby Brook was working his shift at the petrol station when he saw the car that had recently pulled in, slowly roll out of the forecourt at about 9.20pm.
The passenger had been in the store buying lollies and ice-creams, and then said to Mr Brook “he hasn’t gone to sleep has he?”, gesturing to the driver of the car outside.
“That’s when I noticed his head was arched right back on the head rest — it kind of looked like there was no driver, that’s when I thought he was being silly.”
“Then I saw it leave the forecourt very slowly, it went out on the road, just missed a white corolla then ploughed through three fences and a house,” Mr Brook said.
Carterton senior firefighter Wayne Robinson said it was believed the driver suffered a medical event.
“He was taken away to hospital – he was very lucky,” he said.
Police and ambulance assisted at the scene.
