Car crashes into Buffalo-area house; 1 injured

An elderly suburban Buffalo man is lucky to be left without a scratch after a car crashed through the wall of his living room last month. Meanwhile, one of the men inside the car suffered a spinal cord injury, the Buffalo News reports.

Police were still investigating what caused the driver to lose control, and were not even sure which of the men was driving. Somehow, the car went out of control, drove over the homeowner’s neighbor’s lawn and crashed into the side of the house, slamming through the wall and into the living room, then crashing through the floor into the basement. Officers suggested the driver could have been speeding.

The “big bang” awoke the homeowner, 80. He ran into the living room, which was filled with smoke, and saw the wreckage. He heard voices calling for help from the basement and called 911. Rescue workers had to cut the roof off the car to rescue the man with the spinal injury.

The homeowner noted that he was in bed when the crash happened early in the morning. But he had fallen asleep in his recliner in the living room earlier that night, only waking up to use the bathroom. So things could have been even worse.