'In a split second I ran for my life': man speaks of close shave

Harpreet Singh was seconds from death when a car smashed through his garage wall. Photo / Michael Craig

A man escaped a moving wall of terror when a Subaru crashed through his garage while he was inside vacuuming his car.

Harpreet Singh heard a loud bang and looked on in horror as the garage wall began to bulge towards him and he realised what was happening.

"In a split second I ran for my life," he said. "The whole wall was coming my way.

"If I hadn't reacted so quickly, the car would have taken my legs off, if not killed me."

The car smashed though the corner of the rented house where Singh lives with his family in Alfriston Road, Manurewa, South Auckland, about 8.30pm on Friday.

It ploughed through an iron garden fence, crashed into Singh's brother-in-law's car outside and through the garage.

"It also hit my car which I was vacuuming," Singh, 22, explained. "If I hadn't moved so fast it would have pinned me against my vehicle and chopped me at the knees."

"What was so frightening was at the same time the power went off in the garage. It was total darkness in there, so I was very fortunate to get out of the way."

Emergency services were called to the scene and the driver was taken to Middlemore Hospital with serious injuries.

Singh's sister Navdeep Kaur said she could have lost her brother and her partner in the smash.

Her husband Gurpreet Singh had got out of his car and had gone into the house for dinner less than a minute before the Subaru smacked into his vehicle outside.

The family rushed to check on the driver and called an ambulance. Emergency services worked to get the man out of his vehicle.

"It was terrible," Kaur, 27, said. "The driver wasn't moving, his eyes were closed and his car engine was still running," she said.

"At first we thought he might be dead then it was a relief when we could see him breathing.

"My husband had just come back from work and was at his car outside just before the crash happened. If I hadn't called him inside he could have been in real trouble.

"We are so lucky my husband and brother were not badly hurt, or worse."