Akbar Shariff was sleeping when the crash happened.
“All of a sudden we heard a bang,” he said. “It was really loud. I could feel the house shake.”
He jumped out of bed and ran to his balcony, where he was surprised to see a car sitting in his neighbour’s backyard.
The vehicle was traveling westbound on 98th Street in Surrey when it came to a T-intersection at 134th Avenue. Rather than stopping at the stop sign, the vehicle sped through the intersection, jumped the curb, and was apparently going so fast that it plowed through the ground floor of Shariff’s neighbours’ home.
“You could see right through the house,” he said of the aftermath of the crash.
Hammad Lakhnavi was walking home at roughly 11:30 p.m. Friday when the incident took place. He told CTV News he heard the sound of the collision, but didn’t initially realize it was his house that had been hit.
The vehicle had smashed through the living room and the kitchen, bringing the Lakhnavi family’s refrigerator into the backyard with it.
Lakhnavi said his room is in the basement of the home and he often spends evenings in the living room.
“I could have been downstairs,” he said.
Fortunately, neither Lakhnavi, nor any of his five siblings, nor his parents were in the path of the destruction.
Surrey RCMP and fire and rescue crews responded to the scene, and witnesses said they saw the driver of the car being taken away in handcuffs. Police had not announced any charges as of mid-afternoon Saturday.
Witnesses also saw police questioning the female passenger of the vehicle. Neither the driver nor the passenger appeared injured, witnesses said.
Shariff, the neighbour, told CTV News this is not the first time a car has crashed at the intersection. Less than two weeks earlier, another driver crashed into a pole in front of the home, he said.
Shariff said the repeated crashes at the intersection are concerning.
“I didn’t sleep all night,” he said. “I’m just thinking, ‘Those kids, they’re very nice boys.’ We pray together. We go to the same mosque.”
ICBC and building inspectors from the city of Surrey are expected to visit the house on Tuesday. In the meantime, it has been boarded up, and the eight members of the Lakhnavi family are without a permanent home.
Lakhnavi said his family stayed with relatives Friday night, and he expects they may have to stay in a hotel for a while. He’s not too concerned about that, however.
“Thank God nothing happened to me or my family,” he said. “Everything is good.”
With files from CTV Vancouver’s Ben Miljure
