LEMAY, Mo. — On Monday, 5 On Your Side got a first-hand look inside a south County home destroyed by a car that went airborne and plowed straight through it.
Derek Wentzel and his family have lived in that house on Kingston Drive for nearly five years.
“We couldn't have been happier. A good home for the dogs, for the kids, good schools nearby,” Wentzel said.
And it was all taken away in an instant when the car came flying across four houses and landed in theirs.
“At the initial impact, you could see the house shift completely and actually go back and you could almost see the concussive breathing of it. It was intense. It was quite an impact,” Wentzel said.
The family said the driver only lived a few blocks away.
“She had a cat, which they did find another home for her, thankfully. And she never wished any harm on anybody. We didn't know her but we are so saddened by her loss and her family that have to deal with this as well,” Wentzel said.
Where the boards are now, is where an entire car was just days ago making it at first unlivable and now even unfixable.
“It is going to be demolished. Most likely Tuesday, they're going to look and see what they can and can't do for knockdown purposes. And after that, it's going to be a lot and going to be sold to the next developer,” Wentzel said.
But before that happens Wentzel's partner Victoria Shoettle wanted to share how the crash felt from the inside.
“We heard a boom. Before we could react, the boom had come to the house and it was like a bomb went off. Everything was loud. Stuff flying everywhere,” Schoettle said.
Her nephew was just one brick away from being seriously injured or worse.
“He was right here on this bed, sitting in the middle of the bed playing on his tablet. And we were right in there in the dining room. And what had happened, the whole bed just moved all the way in here,” she said, pointing toward the dining room. “He was just surrounded with rubble and there was bricks on the bed that missed him. It was just amazing how we were saved.”
The damage reached all the way into the basement where Wentzel would have been if he was home and even their dog narrowly escaped.
“My chair was all the way across the room with the dog's cage with 200-pound boulders sitting on it,” Wentzel said.
Schoettle says while it only took an instant to change their lives it's going to take longer to put them back together.
“It's a lot. At this point, all we can do now is pick up the pieces. We've gotten things out of the home that we can and just try to get back out there finding a place to live,” Schoettle said.
With one last hug, they say goodbye to their old home knowing that their true home is wherever they're with each other.
The family now has a GoFundMe to help them find a new place to live until their current landlord can hopefully put them in a new home.
