Expand / Collapse search
☰

Not again: Car crashes into SE Atlanta living room, narrowly misses family

By Kim Leoffler
Published  February 13, 2023 10:50pm EST
SE Atlanta
FOX 5 Atlanta

Car crashes into living room, narrowly misses aunt and niece

Around 2 a.m. Monday morning, Virginia Stinson said she and her niece just barely avoided being struck by a car that came barreling into their living room. She said it's not the first time something like this happened here either.

ATLANTA - A southeast Atlanta family is shaken up after a car slammed into their home overnight. The scary thing is they say it’s not the first time this happened, and now they are hoping something can be done to stop it from happening again.

The family says drivers usually fly down Vicki Lane and either fail to notice the stop sign, or maybe choose to ignore it. On Monday, one of those cars ended up inside their home.

It was right around 2 a.m Monday morning when Virginia Stinson and her niece barely missed being hit by a car barreling into their living room.

"She had heart problems, so I was just hollering and screaming for her because she was gonna have a heart attack," Stinson said. "And I said ‘Baby, you’re gonna be alright’."

"I was just terrible--about to cry. I was scared," she said.

Parts of the ceiling, a closest, and a bathroom were all torn apart.

"I was just so shocked, and I was just amazed, and I looked and the car was in the home," Stinson’s granddaughter Deangela Redding said.

Redding was in her bedroom at the time. She said the driver checked to make sure everyone was ok, but then took off running.

The family says they have lived in the house at the end of Vicki Lane for over 30 years, and they told FOX 5 it was not the first time something like happened to them.

"The first time, it ran through the bathroom. [My neighbor was using the bathroom], and it knocked him over in the tub. The second time it went through the same bathroom," Stinson explained.

They put up these wood stumps to try and stop cars from barring into their house, but this driver went right around them.

Now they want to see speed bumps put in to slow drivers down. DeKalb County has a traffic-calming program that involves petitions and traffic studies for residential streets with speed limits of 30 miles per hour of less. Vicki lane would qualify.

The family hopes that process will succeed so something like this cannot happen again.

"Three times. Maybe it will be a fourth time. Maybe I won’t be so lucky," Stinson said.

FOX 5 reached out to DeKalb County Police and they confirmed a report was made, but did not say whether the driver was found or if that person will face charges.