Fatal crash into Bay woman's bedroom

A hole left from where the vehicle crashed into Sylvia's bedroom. Photo: Cameron Avery.

Tauranga woman Sylvia Lawrence was asleep in her bed when a speeding vehicle crashed through her bedroom wall in Otumoetai this morning.

The force of the crash sent Sylvia and her bed hurtling toward her dresser on the other side of the room.

The driver of the ute was trapped in the upturned vehicle and died at the scene, while the passenger was taken to Tauranga Hospital with moderate injuries.

'I just thought it was an earthquake,” says Sylvia, speaking to SunLive after the crash.

'I just got out of bed on all fours and shouted up to my husband was he alright.”

The first person to check on the Lawrences was a man in his underclothes. He also happened to be the owner of the ute that had crashed into the house.

'Now this is hearsay, but the wife of the fellow woke him up saying ‘there's someone stealing our ute'. He hopped out of bed. There he was in his underclothes. He must have followed them.”

The path of the damage shows a vehicle coming from the direction of the Grange Road intersection, slammed the neighbour's brick fence before crashing into Sylvia's fence and house.

The bricks flew for metres with one of them going into the wall by the front door.

'It's smashed all the wall tiles behind it.

'The ute came in here, you can see the marks on the road. It flipped up. We don't know if it went over the fence or all the way up.

'It went into the house here,” says Sylvia, pointing out the head board of her bed visible through the hole.

She was 'just shaking for a couple of hours” afterwards, but got no more sleep as the emergency services arrived to remove the victims and deal with the wreckage, which was cleared by about 6am.

Today the Lawrences are dealing with insurance assessors.

The police serious crash unit is investigating the crash.

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