A Tauranga woman is lucky to be alive after being hit by a car that propelled her and a bike rack through a reinforced plate-glass window and five metres into a Gate Pa cycle shop.
Mariee Mischewski was watching how to attach a basket to the front of a bike on a footpath rack when she was hit by the out-of-control vehicle.
It missed her husband, Kevin Dowdle, and the owner of Bicycle Business, Steve Bourne, by less than half a metre.
The car hit with so much force that, although the laminated glass did not shatter, it took out the entire window.
Badly knocked around by the impact, she is now in Tauranga Hospital with two fractured ankles and a gash to the head that needed five stitches.
"She was lucky to escape with her life," Mr Dowdle told the Bay of Plenty Times following yesterday's 11am accident.
He said it was over in flash. He remembered hearing a car under hard acceleration, a huge crash and then the sight of his wife screaming out his name, in a sitting position with her legs under the bumper, the shattered plate glass and window frame on top of her. Four or five men had sprung into action and lifted up the glass and frame, while others dragged her out and lay her on the shop floor until an ambulance arrived.
Mr Dowdle said it would have been a different result if she had gone under the wheel and not the centre of the car.
In an amazing coincidence Mariee's brother, Ross Mischewski, was in neighbouring Mega Mitre 10 chatting to a woman who had mentioned the incident at Bicycle Business. He immediately went to the site because he was one of the property managers for JWL, the company that owned the building. He saw a woman, her face covered in blood, lying on the St John stretcher and had thought "that poor woman". A moment later, his brother-in-law had appeared and said, "Ross, that's Mariee."
Mr Mischewski was almost grateful he did not arrive at the scene earlier because by that time St John paramedics had stabilised his sister and calmed her down. She was able to talk to her brother. "I thought, she must be OK. If I had been there prior to St John turning up it would have been different."
Mr Mischewski had gone into delayed shock after his sister was taken to hospital. "I felt cold and shaky."
The incident was seen by salesman Liam Knight from inside the shop. "I was moving back as it [the car] was coming in - it wasn't going slow. I'm grateful I was looking in the right direction."
Mr Knight said it was the biggest shock he'd had for a long time. He and other witnesses could not understand how the vehicle managed to crash into the window. A little earlier it was seen coming from the nearby roundabout, so it was not a case of the driver getting the accelerator and brake mixed up leaving a carpark.
Mr Bourne's first reaction was that the collision had killed Ms Mischewski. In an instant, he saw the car, the woman, the glass wrapped around her, up against the bike rack. "I yelled out, 'call an ambulance'."
He praised the actions of nearby businesses coming to his assistance, including staff from Mega Mitre 10. A builder, who happened to be in Mitre 10 at the time, spent three hours putting a temporary fix across the huge hole in the shop frontage.
Mr Bourne estimated the total damage and repairs at about $20,000.