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Minivan Crashes Into Claymont Home

CLAYMONT, Del., (CBS) – Delaware State Police are investigating after a minivan crashed into the front of a home in New Castle County, Delaware Thursday night.

CBS 3 Eyewitness News spoke with the woman who lives there with her two children. Off camera she says she's in shock and shutters to think what could have happened if they were inside.

"And I just turned around and I saw it all just happening, it exploded. It just, boom it was just that quick, in a split second," driver Erik Webber said.

A single family home in ruin and a family left without a place to live after a driver crashed a minivan through the front of their house.

"The most devastating accident I've ever seen. Five foot in the air, over the hand rail in the front of the house, and spun around two times in the air, in a split second, I mean, that's amazing," Webber said.

It happened just after 5 p.m. on Darley Road in Claymont, Delaware. Witnesses saw the car wobbling out of control after striking something on the highway then careening into the front yard.

Erik Webber was stopped at the light and saw it all.

"I thought he was coming at me, he was coming at me, and I was concerned at that point I can run out of my vehicle and just exit it and run, it was that far away," Webber said. "It spun twice, from what I could see, it spun twice and the whole house was destroyed in a second."

A bed and belongings scattered the yard. The family wasn't home but say a few minutes later and they would have been sitting in the room now exposed and open to the outside. The house is condemned for fear it will collapse.

The driver walked off and was picked up a few blocks away found wandering by medics then taken to Christiana Hospital with head injuries.

The family is staying with friends tonight. They have not been allowed back inside to collect their belongings, the structure is still too unstable.

The driver has been identified by police as 34-year-old Jason T. Roane, of Claymont. Police say he has been cited with multiple traffic offenses including Driving under the Influence of Drugs and Leaving the Scene of a Motor Vehicle Crash.

 

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