Death has brushed the shoulders of three Kingston men, but a last-minute decision to eat out saved their lives.
Last Monday night, a ute crashed into the home of Steve Jordan and Allah Yousseff, smashing through the brick wall and into the living room.
The facade of the home was almost completely destroyed.
Luckily, the men and their friend had decided to go out for dinner and were not home when the crash happened.
They are reportedly no longer staying at the residence, but neighbours said they had been “moving bricks and rubble” and collecting belongings.
Rachael Stevens, who lives directly across the street from the accident, was one of the first on the scene.
“I actually heard the car coming down the street and then I heard a big bang,” Ms Stevens said.
She said the driver was revving the car trying to back out of the house, but he was stuck.
“There was some brickwork that had trapped him (the driver) in so I pulled that out of the way,” Ms Stevens said.
She said she eventually stopped helping him once she noticed his demeanour.
“He stunk of beer, and he was slurring a bit,” she said.
Ms Stevens alleged the man grabbed a hammer out of his vehicle, “waved it around” and smashed it into the rubble to dislodge the utility.
“You can see the holes in the wall from when he grabbed the hammer and smashed around the car,” she said.
“He wasn’t all there, so I backed off a bit.
“As soon as he realised people were calling the cops, he made a run for it.”
According to Ms Stevens, the man ran through the back of the property and into Kingston State School, where he became trapped.
Police later located the man in the school and arrested him.
Much to the neighbours’ disbelief, the front fence of the property was completely undamaged.
“The gate was left open, so he drove straight through it,” Ms Stevens said.
She said that no one involved in the incident had insurance, including the homeowner, the tenants and the driver.
