Overloaded stolen car smashes into Hastings house: 'It looked like her eyeball was coming out'

A stolen vehicle smashed through a Flaxmere home at speed early this morning. Hawke's Bay Today's Gary Hamilton-Irvine reports

A stolen car, a smashed house, a shunted mattress, a group of fleeing teens and a girl whose eyeball looked like it was "coming out".

A witness has described the carnage he awoke to in Margate Ave in Flaxmere on Friday as an overloaded car ploughed through a house and kept going.

Eventually the stolen Subaru Legacy hit a fence at the back of the property, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.

Shayne Bryant was at the shops when a car went through his house on Friday morning. Photo / Paul Taylor

Neighbour Trima Tino said he saw eight young people get out of the Subaru Legacy and they all looked like teenagers.

Seven of them ran off before he stopped one girl - aged about 14 or 15 - who had stumbled out of the car who had suffered a serious head injury.

He said she was bleeding and "it looked like her eyeball was coming out".

Resident Shayne Bryant says it was lucky no one was killed. Photo / Paul Taylor

Tino said he told the injured girl to sit down on the front lawn while the police and ambulance were called.

He said the Margate Ave corner was a crash blackspot.

Resident Shayne Bryant lives at the house and ducked out to the shop to get some milk just a few minutes before the crash.

The crash caused huge damage to the home. Photo / Paul Taylor

"I went to the shop and came back about five minutes later and someone had gone through my house," he said.

"They took out the letterbox and went straight through the house."

He said you could see skid marks about 100 metres up the road and the car must have jumped the curb and gone airborne before taking out the letterbox, fence and the corner of the house.

The car then came to a stop about 15m past the house in the back fence.

He said the room that they crashed through was the spare room and if anyone was in there they would likely have died.

The back lawn of the property on Margate Ave was strewn with material. Photo / Paul Taylor

The bed from the spare room was sent about 5m out onto the lawn and a sleeping bag from the bed was dragged under the car, Bryant said.

Bryant said when he returned home there was about five people outside his home including the injured girl, who had a towel wrapped around her head and "was in a bad way".

"In the front window of the car there was a piece of wood stuck through it and there was blood on the seat," he said.

"A cop told us that she might lose her eye."

He said he had a house mate who was sleeping in another room in the house and he did not wake up despite the smash.

A bed from a spare room was dragged onto the lawn. Photo / Paul Taylor

Bryant said he heard cars hooning around the area all the time and neighbours had experienced broken fences and crashes in the past.

"Council has to do something," he said. "We need speed bumps or something done to slow people down."

He said a friend was meant to be coming today to change carpet in the house and would have been killed if he was in the room.

Police confirmed one person had been seriously injured.

"Several people were seen to get out of the car and leave the area on foot," a police spokeswoman said.

The car came to rest on the back fence. Photo / Paul Taylor

"One person, who had been in the vehicle, sustained serious injuries and remained at the crash site.

"That person was transported to hospital in a serious condition.

"No occupants of the house were injured."

Hastings resident Fa'amanu Manutulila realised his 2007 Subaru Legacy had been stolen when he received a visit from police on Friday morning.

He visited the crash site a few hours later to find his car had been towed away and just the bumper and number plate were left on the lawn.

He told Hawke's Bay Today he had owned the car for about three years and it was not insured.