Runaway crash moments from tragedy

Close call: Senior firefighter Dave Lott inspects the damage. Photo / Dean Purcell

Skidding car slams into Ellerslie house just moments after mum and baby leave room

A young mother had just taken her baby from the front bedroom of her house yesterday when a car came crashing through the wall.

"We heard the skids first," a shaken Rachel Milburn-Shand told the Weekend Herald.

"We were like, 'Wait, wait, wait, here it is', and then it was like this almighty blow to the house and the whole house came forward and cracks showed right through the house."

Her mother, Anne Milburn, who was staying in the room, said the car was "sitting in the middle of my bedroom".

Mrs Milburn-Shand was relieved no one was hurt and said a house-move was imminent.

"Oh God, we are [shifting] now - yes," she said. "That bedroom was going to be [baby Harry's] room in two months' time."

Fire crews were alerted to the crash - just past a steep 35km/h bend on Marua Rd in Ellerslie - about 4.15pm.

Firefighters arrived to find the 1997 Toyota Starlet hatchback stuck in the wooden house.

It had cut a clear path down the driveway, between two trees, and into the front.

Station Officer Greg Daley of the Ellerslie Fire Service said there were no skid marks to indicate the driver - believed to be a woman in her 20s - had braked or swerved.

"So there appears to be no attempt to stop," he said. "I'm not sure what was going through her mind."

Mr Daley's advice: "Never buy a house on a corner, especially a downhill slope. It's a recipe for a disaster."

Mrs Milburn-Shand understood the woman had mistakenly accelerated.

Three years ago, a car had lost control on the same corner and took out the fence, she said, and rainy weather often caused cars to slide out.

It is understood the driver was taken to hospital with a sore neck.