A Bradenton home was being boarded up Sunday afternoon, after an uninvited guest came barreling into the garage.
"I tried to call her attention and say, 'Hello, Stop!' You know, but no. She wasn't responding," said neighbor Paco Martinez, who witnessed the crash.
Police say an elderly woman had a medical episode while driving along Southern Parkway. She first veered off the road on one side, knocking down a mailbox then plowing through some bushes.
Wendi McIlvain had just pulled into the driveway of her house when she saw the whole bumper of her red Ford Mustang laying in the front yard. Then other neighbors watched as the car kept on driving down the street, crossing over the median going the wrong way down the other side of the road.
"She missed palm trees coming in. She missed trees going out. It's just a miracle that no one was hurt," said McIlvain.
But the driver's detour wasn't done. She clipped the side of one home, damaging a bench and the gutters. Her car finally stopped after she slammed into the garage of the next home down.
"It was like a bomb, you know, when I heard that noise," Martinez said.
Martinez and his daughter Sara ran to the house to help and called 911.
"I thought she was dead already because it was like 40 miles an hour maybe she was going," said Martinez.
Amazingly, the two people inside the home were okay and came out to find the driver waking up.
"They were talking to her, trying to keep her alive, you know. And she was responding and started moving a little bit. When we saw she was moving, we were like, 'Oh! She's alive! She's okay!'" Martinez said.
The driver was taken to the hospital with just minor injuries.
The house has been deemed structurally unsafe. All four people who lived there aren't allowed to go inside.
But everyone in the community say there is still a lot to be thankful for. No one was left seriously hurt or killed, and the damaged property can be fixed.
