A South Florida family is lucky to be alive after a van crashed into their Homestead house Sunday.
"I saw the car coming to me, and then I just got scared so I ran inside. That's when the car just came inside the house," said 12-year-old Skyler Nunez, describing the crash that sent him running for cover in his own backyard.
Nunez was playing outside as his father and two other siblings were ready to hop in the car to pick up their mother from work nearby.
He says all of a sudden, two cars slammed into each other at the intersection of Old Cutler Road and Southwest 112th Avenue. The impact sent one of the cars involved, a van, through the fence of his corner home and into his backyard.
The van stopped inches away from causing major damage to the home.
After receiving a phone call at work, mother Jessica Nunez said she rushed home.
"When I got home from work, I saw a car in front of the door of my house, my son with a sprained ankle, my kids crying. I pretty much went crazy, I didn't know what was going on," Nunez said.
She panicked, instinctively making sure all her children were accounted for.
The Nunez family says a power outage caused the traffic lights at the intersection near their corner home to go out. Witnesses believe it may have contributed to the crash.
A female driver was behind the wheel of the van, a male driver behind the wheel of the other car involved. According to witnesses, drivers handled the traffic light situation by treating it as a four-way stop.
"Everybody else was stopped, they were stopped. It was his turn to go, he started to go, she didn't see the light and she hit him. When she hit him she swerved over and went straight into the house," said Ron Houghton, a witness of the accident.
The male driver of the other vehicle involved had to be rushed to the hospital for minor injuries. As for Skyler Nunez, he fell and sprained his ankle as he tried to run away from the car. Like most kids his age he seemed to bounce back pretty quickly from the ordeal.
"I'm just glad my ankle's ok," he said.
The Nunez family hopes the landlord will be able to repair the fence and the damaged door to their home quickly. They say they are just relieved everyone is ok.
