The left front indicator was next to her pillow, but when Renea Wharekura woke in “excruciating pain” with her nose bleeding, she had no idea a car had crashed into her bedroom, inches from her and her daughter.
“I think about it every day, how close it was.”
It has been four weeks since the car — driven by a teen drink driver — smashed through three fences and a garage before crashing into the back of Wharekura’s Fordlands house.
The broken windows and walls of the home are boarded up, waiting on repairs, but two families still live there, sleeping in the third bedroom and lounge. The smashed wreck had been moved out of the house but was still sitting on the property this week, a daily reminder of that night.
Wharekura and her partner were asleep in bed while her daughter slept on a mattress on the floor when the crash happened about 5am on September 9.
The car smashed through the front fence of a house on the corner of Harold Cres and Wing Place, then two more fences, and the corner of a garage at a property next door to Wharekura’s before flying into the back of her house.
The impact of the crash demolished the corner of the roof, walls, flooring, foundations and all the windows along that side of the house.
In the darkness, Wharekura and her partner were in such a deep sleep they had no idea what happened — despite Wharekura saying her pillow was right next to the indicator of the crashed car.
“I just felt excruciating pain on my forehead.”
She could feel her nose bleeding so went to go to the bathroom fearing the blood would get on her bedsheets. For the first few seconds, she was oblivious that a window frame had fallen on her face, she had a broken nose and there was a crashed car in her bedroom.
She could tell in the shadows a television was on the ground — but assumed their dog was responsible.
Wharekura told her partner to check if her daughter was okay. He discovered the television shelf had also fallen, forming a shield around her daughter that protected her from the debris. Little did he know the car’s right indicator was just centimetres from her.
They heard smashing glass and Whareukura thought someone was trying to break in.
As her eyes adjusted, she heard the voices of young girls inside the car and she realised what happened.
“I went outside and I was just yelling at them. I said ‘you could have killed my daughter’. I was that angry.”
Within minutes, all the neighbours were outside and watching the commotion.
The home, which Wharekura rents through a community housing agent, is privately owned. Builders had been to do an insurance assessment and they removed the wreck from inside the bedroom and put it at the front of the house — where it remained earlier this week.
The car has bits of wood and plasterboard stuck in the motor.
Wharekura said the impacted rooms were too cold and damaged to sleep in and her landlord had advised repairs could be at least a month away.
“I’m not even sure how it will be fixed because it’s moved all the roof and foundations sideways.”
Wharekura’s family shares the house with her brother and his two children and everyone is sleeping in the third bedroom and lounge for now.
Wharekura kept the door closed to her damaged bedroom, unable to bring herself to go back in there.
“It just makes me feel weird … I think about it every day, how close it was.”
She said she was shocked no one had taken the car away.
A Rotorua police spokeswoman told the Rotorua Daily Post Weekend that typically either the police would arrange a tow or it would become an insurance matter.
She said it was not removed at the time because of concerns about the structural integrity of the house. She said it was no longer the police’s responsibility.
“We acknowledge the distress this incident would have caused victims involved in this matter, and we do intend to follow up with all victims at the earliest opportunity.”
The Rotorua Daily Post Weekend asked the Rotorua Lakes Council about the wreck this week and three days later a spokeswoman confirmed it would remove the car as soon as possible and try to recover costs from the vehicle’s owner.
A 19-year-old Rotorua woman appeared in the Rotorua District Court on Thursday in relation to the crash.
She pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and drink driving aged under 20, recording an excess breath alcohol reading of 400 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath. The limit to drive for under-20s is zero; the adult limit is 250mcg.
A community magistrate granted her interim name suppression on the grounds of her age and after her lawyer indicated she would seek a discharge without conviction. The teen would be sentenced in December.
The maximum penalty for both charges is three months in prison.
Wharekura’s experience prompted Harold Cres resident John Webster to renew his calls to the Rotorua Lakes Council to install speed bumps in the area.
Webster said he wrote to the council in April after two speeding cars in seven days lost control and crashed through the front fences of nearby houses.
“How someone was not killed that night (when Wharekura’s house was damaged) is purely luck, it’s just a matter of time and I guess the council need a serious injury or death before action takes place.”
He said the problem seemed to have worsened since speed bumps were put on busier nearby roads, such as Ford Rd, Malfroy Rd and Sunset Rd.
“This has directed the speeding joy riders into the usually quiet small streets.”
In April the council emailed him saying it did not have any accident reports from the street.
The Rotorua Daily Post Weekend spoke with another Harold Cres resident, who didn’t want to be named, who rattled off crash after crash she had witnessed from her living room window in the few years she had lived there.
She echoed Webster’s call for speed bumps.
Council infrastructure and environmental solutions group manager Stavros Michael said the council was asked for traffic calming interventions such as speed bumps almost weekly.
“We have a limited budget and resources for such work and we have to operate a priority list based on assessed risk.”
Michael said Harold Cres was added to the list of streets assessed annually, following Webster’s request in April and the recent crash.
“The assessment will determine if traffic calming measures are warranted and if so, we would then determine what type of traffic calming would be most appropriate.”
When considering traffic calming measures such as speed bumps, the road is given a priority score based on traffic volumes, types of users, recorded vehicle speeds, reported speed-related crashes and injuries, and proximity to community facilities — such as schools, parks, rest homes and marae — that generate pedestrian traffic.
- Additional reporting: Sandra Conchie
Kelly Makiha is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.
Te Whatu Ora team supports whānau post-suicide, focusing on trust and community needs.