Tenant safe as van hits house

A VAN careered out of control and smashed into the side of a Barnsley house - demolishing part of a wall.

A man, who lives alone, was in his lounge yesterday morning when the van mounted a pavement, pass-ed over a grass verge, destroyed the garden fence and ploughed into the side of his house.

The van knocked out a large area of brickwork into the hallway of the house and moved the staircase.

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Emergency repairs were carried out at the scene yesterday after the tenant left to stay with relatives until structural engineers ass-essed the extent of the damage.

Emergency services were called to the house on Pearson Crescent, Womb-well, just before 7am yesterday to a find a Transit van embedded in the side of the house.

Paramedics treated one woman and two men from the van for superficial injuries, but another man fled from the scene.

A police hunt is now underway to trace him.

One neighbour said: “I was having a cigarette and saw the van coming down the road, and I had just closed the door when a split second later I heard a huge bang and went outside to see the van smashed into the wall.

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“The impact was so bad that the stairs have been knocked sideways so they are worried now how safe the rest of the house is now.

“The man who lives there was in the downstairs room.

“He is lucky he hadn’t been coming down the stairs at the time because who knows what might have happened.

“They are doing repairs but they will have to see how much damage there is before he can move back in.”