Man impaled on fence in critical condition

One person was critically injured this morning after being impaled on a fence post after a serious crash on a suburban road.

The one-car crash happened on Fairview Avenue near Albany on Auckland's North Shore.

Emergency services workers extricated the driver from the car.

An eyewitness understood the man was impaled in the abdomen and it appeared a piece of fence had gone through the car, possibly impaling him while he was in the vehicle.

The 25 year-old man was still in a critical condition at Auckland City Hospital shortly before noon, a district health board spokesman said.

Police Northern Communications said emergency services were alerted to the incident at about 3.24am.

The Serious Crash Unit was investigating.

The Fire Service said the car's only occupant was injured.

Firefighters waited with the driver until an ambulance arrived.

A neighbour living near the property where the crash happened said the car came up Fairview Ave and went through a fence, a tree, and onto a retaining wall, narrowly missing the house.

She understood from another neighbour that the badly injured man was a local who lived with flatmates in the neighbourhood.

"His flatmates said they saw him at about midnight."

The man was then believed to have gone out for a drive, come back and lost control.

She said Fairview Ave had gotten busier in recent years but it was too soon to speculate on the cause of the crash.

"We've had a few similar incidents. Somebody drove into a ditch ... I really don't understand."

She said the owner of the house where the crash happened was out of town, and tenants were in the house.

At least one of the tenants rushed out to help the man, who locals believed was impaled in the side of his body after a fence post went through his car door.