A Dunwoody family is safe after a car crashed into their DeKalb County home early Friday, killing the car’s driver.
Homeowner Harmeet Kukreja said she, her husband, their two children and in-laws visiting from India were asleep in upstairs bedrooms of the brick home on Brookridge Drive around 4 a.m. when “suddenly we heard a loud noise.
“We thought it was an earthquake or something, maybe a tree fell down.”
The family ran downstairs to find their living room, where the car had come to rest, filled with smoke.
“There was so much smoke inside, we couldn’t see anything,” Kukreja told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I grabbed my phone and ran outside to call 911.”
DeKalb fire Deputy Chief Norman Augustin said when firefighters arrived about seven minutes later, they found heavy smoke and flames, but didn’t realize a car had crashed into the home.
“We initiated an aggressive interior attack,” Augustin said. “As we were putting the fire out, we found that a car was actually in the main area of the house.”
Augustin said there’s “no way to tell at this time” if the driver of the Toyota, a man in his early to mid-80s, suffered a medical problem that led to the accident or was killed by the impact.
Firefighters were still working several hours later to stabilize the home and remove the car.
“My legs are shaking and my daughter is really frightened,” Kukreja said. “My son is really frightened, too.”
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