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Sleeping couple survives car crashing into home on top
of them.
DERRY, N.H. - Joanne and Mahlon Donovan were sound asleep when they were joined by a car that fell through their roof right over their bed. ``We should be dead. We should be dead,'' Joanne Donovan, 63, said after the intrusion early Easter Sunday morning. She and her husband suffered only minor injuries.
The speeding car veered through a neighbor's yard at about 3 a.m., hit a knoll and vaulted into the air, soaring over two cars, a pickup truck and telephone wires before crashing down onto the Donovans' home. Police estimated it was airborne for about 150 feet.
``I woke up and I was buried up to my head with Sheetrock and other stuff that came down from the house,'' said Mahlon ``Spud'' Donovan, 65. ``There was this humongous explosion, and then the thing was right in front of my face. I could feel the heat from the exhaust system coming through the sheets.''
The crash destroyed three bedrooms and knocked part of the house off its foundation. In addition, crews had to knock down part of a wall to drag the car out. The driver, Julie Sarbanis, 20, was not seriously hurt. She was charged with drunken driving.
The car came to rest about a foot above the bed, with one end supported by a bedroom dresser.
``If not for the bureau, the people in the bed would have been crushed,'' said police Lt. John Muise. Mrs. Donovan said a statue of the Virgin Mary standing on the dresser ``helped create a miracle.''
Her husband, a retired state police officer, has seen other houses hit by cars, but nothing like this. ``I thought it was an airplane,'' he said Tuesday on NBC's ``Today'' show.
In spite of everything, Mrs. Donovan slept through the crash. He said he woke her up and ``told her we had company.'' ``Isn't that amazing?,'' Mrs. Donovan said Tuesday. ``And I'm not a heavy sleeper, either.'' |
