Early morning escape for terrified couple
By LUKE PARKER - Western Leader
SHATTERED: Robert and Annette Walters had a lucky escape when a car crashed through their fence.
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A few more feet to the right and it could have been a whole different story.
Ranui pensioners Robert and Annette Walters were in bed at 1.30am on November 8 when a car hit a large tree on the road verge and smashed through their fence.
The vehicle ploughed through their garden and hit a large pohutukawa tree on the section before catapulting into another part of the fence and exiting the property. It just missed the house and the couple's bedroom.
Mrs Walters, 75, heard it coming.
"There was a car travelling very fast up the street and a lot of noise," she says. "It seemed to be so close to the house and then there was a terrific bang. I thought, God it's going to come in. What am I going to do?
"I tried to wake Robert and I said: 'I think a car's going to hit us.' I was looking for my walker but I couldn't even think where that was. I just wanted to get out of the room."
Daylight revealed tyre marks just a couple of feet from their corner bedroom.
"I was lying in bed right next to the window," the grandmother of four says.
"I was petrified and in shock and I really thought I was going to have a stroke.
"I was in bed all the next day. I was useless."
The couple are devastated by the resulting mess.
"We had a beautiful pohutukawa which was 13 years old, white gardenia and dublin bay roses," Mrs Walters says.
"We've had people come in and admire the gardens from the street."
A man appeared in the Waitakere District Court charged with dangerous driving on Tuesday.
He was remanded on bail and will reappear later this month.
