Driver crashes into house, causing major damage

A car crashed through the front of a house Saturday evening on Amity Hill Road in western Rowan County. No one inside the house was hurt, and the driver was taken to the hospital as a precaution. Photo by Karissa Minn, Salisbury Post.

Firefighters work to disable a car for towing after it struck a house Saturday evening on Amity Hill Road. Photo by Karissa Minn, Salisbury Post.

Crews use a towing cable to pull a car out of a house on Amity Hill Road in western Rowan County. Photo by Karissa Minn, Salisbury Post.

A car ran into a house Saturday evening on Amity Hill Road, having traveled more than 200 feet after leaving the roadway. It was airborne for nearly another 50 feet before crashing through the front wall and coming to rest inside the house. Photo by Karissa Minn, Salisbury Post.

By Karissa Minn

kminn@salisburypost.com

CLEVELAND — A car crashed through the front of a house on Amity Hill Road on Saturday evening, but no one in the home was injured.

According to emergency communications, Camillo Sanchez’s 1994 Ford Taurus hit the house at an estimated 60 miles per hour. Sanchez apparently had made no attempt to stop. The 911 call came in around 7:20 p.m.

According to N.C. Highway Patrol Trooper B.P. Potts, alcohol was a factor in the wreck.

Sanchez, 24, of Old Mocksville Road, was charged with driving while impaired, careless and reckless driving and having no driver’s license.

Officers from the Cleveland Police Department took him into custody as he was walking away from the scene, according to Cleveland Fire Department Assistant Chief Greg Summitt.

Medical personnel said Sanchez likely wasn’t wearing a seatbelt because it left no marks on his body. He was taken to Rowan Regional Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.

Ruth Askew, 69, of 2310 Amity Hill Road, said she was just getting ready to walk out the back door Saturday when she heard a loud noise. She and a friend walked outside and around the house to discover a large hole where her front door had been.

“When I went in, my friend was pointing at something, and I thought it was the couch turned over,” Askew said. “But it was the car sitting up in here, and that just blew me away.”

The white, older-model Ford Taurus still had its lights and engine on. It had crashed through the front wall and come to rest inside the main living room.

It also went through the corner of Askew’s bedroom, where she said she would have been resting if she and her friend hadn’t decided to go out.

Deanna Culbertson, Askew’s niece, said she heard a loud boom from her home at 2320 Amity Hill Road. She said she didn’t think about it at first because so many wrecks happen nearby.

Her cousin then called to ask what was going on, and Culbertson went outside to check. She said the scene reminded her of a time when another driver fell asleep and hit a tree in someone’s yard.

“This isn’t the first time that something like this has happened,” Culbertson said. “It’s like a speedway down through here, and it scares me.”

Contact reporter Karissa Minn at 704-797-4222.

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