How a tea break saved this couple's life

A retired couple owe their lives to a tea break – after a car ploughed into their dining room as they enjoyed a cuppa in their lounge.

Bryan and Sandra Blundell left the room to brew up seconds before their neighbour’s Ford Focus careered into their Solihull bungalow in a Friday the 13th horror accident.

Watch commander Rob Atkins, from Solihull fire station, said the resident had reversed out of his garage and taken out a corner of the couple’s Buckbury Croft home.

And pictures taken by fire crews showed their dining room table clearly visible from outside the bungalow through a pile of bricks and concrete blocks.

Sandra, aged 74 and a former GP receptionist, said:

The Focus involved in the 11.50am crash belongs to a neighbour living opposite the couple.

He was not at home last night.

The car shot across the road and up a grass bank before smashing into Bryan and Sandra’s home, leaving a gaping hole and cracks to appear in their living room ceiling and kitchen wall.

Firefighters from Solihull and Highgate were called to the scene and made the property secure with wooden boards.

Steel props were also fitted by their insurer to keep the roof up.

But they face months of work to get their beloved bungalow back in order.Former Jaguar Land Rover engineer Bryan, 79, said neither he nor his wife knew the name of the neighbour involved.

Sandra said she had bought a lottery ticket for next Saturday after being told she was a very lucky woman by firefighters.