Dramatic video shows the moment a car drove through a roller door garage into a Nelson business overnight.
Footage captured from external cameras at Nelson Alarms Security Systems on Parkers Rd in Tāhunanui showed the vehicle failing to stop at an intersection and driving straight through the roller door.
Inside, cameras capture the driver attempting to reverse out of the building a few times, surrounded by debris from the crash.
Nelson Alarms managing director Adrian Laing told 1News he was alerted to “a lot of activations” happening on the alarm monitoring system, including the fire alarm going off, shortly before midnight.
“[I] jumped on our camera system straight away on the phone, brought it up to have a look at what was going on and shortly after noticed there was a vehicle inside the building.”
Laing said he quickly phoned his business partner, and they both raced to the building where emergency services including police and Fire and Emergency had already arrived.
Laing said there was “a lot of smoke” coming from the vehicle, which had been attempting to reverse after smashing through the front roller door.
“The vehicle trying to get out, it was spinning rubber on the inside of the building. So the whole thing was filled with smoke, the fire guys were had to get the door up and get the smoke cleared before they could remove the car.”
Laing said it was fortunate the “quite significant damage” was only restricted to one downstairs storage area of the business.
“Because the vehicle didn’t slow down and it just kept going until it had hit one of the walls. So the whole thing just shoved, you know, it shoved the walls quite a way.
“We were looking at it and everyone just couldn’t believe the fact that the guy just didn’t slow down at all.”
Laing said the driver was “so fortunate that he hit the garage door square on”.
“Because if he had hit either side, probably within a couple 100mm, he would have smashed into the side of a concrete pillar and it would have been a completely different outcome.”
Laing praised the swift response from emergency services.
A police spokesperson said officers responded to reports of a vehicle crashing into a commercial building on Parkers Rd in Tāhunanui around 12am.
“Police responded and were speaking to the driver,” they said.