It was 12.05am on Monday morning. There was a loud sound – “like a jet-plane in the front yard”- and Denzel Constance looked out of his living room window.
He saw blinding lights descending on his house from above.
“I thought it was an airplane crashing into our house,” Constance said in his Albertville home on 15 July.
It was not a space ship, a bird nor a plane nor the Bloodhound project we reported on three weeks ago. It was a car hurtling in the air.
The car apparently skidded on the road and hit the sidewalk, somehow managed to drive up the electricity pole outside Constance’s house, flipped in mid-air, vaulted over the wall and landed on its roof in the house’s front yard.
“After the initial shock of seeing that, I went outside to see what had happened,” Constance recounted.
“The car was on its back in our front yard and there were thumping noises from the driver kicking the car door open. He managed to get out of his car. He was obviously quite dizzy when he got out, but remarkably fine otherwise. He didn’t seem to be injured, although his nose was bleeding, apparently because the car’s airbag hit him on the face. He wanted to know if we were all okay.”
Sophiatown police arrived on the scene, and the driver was taken into the station, and then to hospital.
The impact of the car driving up the electric pole was so great that the pole at the other end of Ackerman Street was uprooted, leaving most of the street without electricity. The house’s roof was damaged and the top of the outside wall was damaged when the car vaulted over it.
“It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle that the car flew up the telephone pole, it’s a miracle that the car was mostly undamaged except for shattered windows, and most of all, it’s a miracle that nobody was injured. That car landed half a metre outside of my son’s window. If it had been any closer…” he trailed off.
“It was scary. If the car had hit the roof harder it may have landed on the roof and everyone in the adjoining houses here might have been dead. We may be talking about it lightly and joking about it, but thank you Lord.”
Constance and his family are handling the situation remarkably well, and in fact he thinks the event was fortunate because it bought him and his neighbours together.
“It was an excellent opportunity to meet new people,” he joked.
It’s been a circus at the Constance-household ever since the flying car descended into their yard. “It was like Hollywood. Police, ambulance, inquisitive neighbours and even more inquisitive drivers by have stopped by. People would drive off after coming to have a look and return with their families to come and take pictures. There was even a guy who came to try and steal the car’s wheels off this morning. Very exciting times for us.”
The car was air-lifted out of the yard the same day, so the Constance family can hopefully now take a break from their eventful week.
“Look, it was an accident,” Constance said.
“Accidents happen. It’s out of your hands. You can’t get angry because of an accident. I am worried about the legal repercussions for the driver though. His friends have been here yesterday and today to sort everything out and help us with the insurance and replacement, they’ve been very helpful and kind, and they’ve become our friends now.”
Sophiatown police spokesperson Warrant Officer TJ de Bruyn confirmed that a case had been opened. “The driver is being charged for reckless and negligent driving,” he said.
Constance, meanwhile, lamented the loss of his Webber braai, which was flattened by the car. “We’re big braaiers,” he said.
“And I do need my Webber back by Friday cause we’re having a function here.”
