Driver may have passed out before crash

The car jumped a kerb and squeezed between two trees before ploughing into the unit. Photo / Paul Estcourt

The driver of a car which left the road and crashed into the side of a house may have passed out with her foot on the accelerator.

The woman, in her late 70s, escaped with a broken wrist after her Nissan Sentra smashed through a wooden fence and destroyed the brick wall and bathroom of a house on Edgewater Drive in Pakuranga.

She had clipped a car at the intersection with Te Rakau Drive, before continuing at full speed for another 50m, while apparently unconscious.

Witness Mark Rowley said he watched the car leave the road and go on "a bumpy ride" over a kerb, through a reserve - narrowly squeezing between two trees - before crashing into the house.

"It wasn't someone who was trying to slow down, she was out of control. She must have passed out with her foot on the accelerator."

Mr Rowley said the woman emerged from the wrecked car immediately, but could not remember what had happened.

A fireman at the scene said the driver "must have been still going at full clip" when she crashed - the entire wooden frame of the small unit had shifted half a metre.

The brick wall and timber frame were demolished and a bath was thrown across the room.

The only person inside the unit, an elderly woman, was on the other side of the dwelling when the crash occurred and was unharmed.

The motorist's son-in-law, Grant Aspinall, said the driver was lucky to not suffer worse injuries.

"She seemed okay when I talked to her. It's unbelievable - I don't think you could fit a car between those trees again if you were trying."

Mr Aspinall said his mother-in-law did not have a medical condition and was a competent driver.

The motorist, whose car came to rest immediately opposite her rest home, was taken to Middlemore Hospital as a precaution.

Police said they were still trying to piece together how the crash occurred, and could not say whether the driver had passed out.