Katy McGarry tells the Helston Packet how she went to aid of neighbour in Passmore Road after car crashed into her wall

The early morning drama took place in Helston's Passmore Road on Sunday.

The silver Audi ploughed straight through the front garden fence and into the house, which has been structurally damaged as a result.

Katy McGarry, who lives next door, was woken just before 6am by an "horrendous" noise.

She told the Packet: "It was really loud. I thought I was dreaming about wartime and it was a bomb or something."

A service manager for Mencap, who is trained in first aid, she said her first thought upon realising what had happened was for her elderly neighbour and the driver of the car, who she feared might still be behind the wheel injured.

"I just chucked my dressing gown on. The car was literally at the front door.

"I went to open the car door, because I thought someone was in there, and it was locked. Then all this smoke started to come out," she said.

What she hadn't realised at that time was that the car had gone straight through the electricity box, meaning the car could have live.

• Katy McGarry stands in front of her next door neighbour's house, which the car crashed into

Katy turned her attention to her elderly neighbour, who is in her 80s, explaining she was keen to get her out the house.

"She was really scared," she said. "I didn't want her to come out at the front door. I shouted through the letterbox and went round the back; the car was still smoking. I got her dressed and rang her daughter to come and get her."

By this time police and fire crews from Helston had arrived, but Kate, her husband James and their neighbours on the other side of the damaged house were not allowed back in their homes for three hours and were forced to stay outside in their pyjamas.

Western Power was also called to make the electrics safe and a structural engineer from Cornwall Council had to check the safety of the houses.

• Emergency services were out in force following the crash in Passmore Road

Katy said that although their walls now had cracks, the garden had been churned up and the fence ripped down - not ideal when she and her husband are trying to sell their house - they were "lucky" not to have received any major damage to the house.

Her thoughts remain with her neighbour, whose garden had two be dug up in two places to isolate the electrics.

When the car was removed sparks were flying and there was "smoke everywhere," said Katy, who added: "It's just a nightmare really. She's a lovely lady. The fireman let her get her cat and take it out in a basket.

"Luckily no one was hurt. She could have been right at the front of the house, or if they hadn't put the fence up the car would have gone straight into the house and it would have taken out the front wall.

"The car missed our gas line by about two inches."

Barriers continue to surround the house, with the pensioner understood to be staying with her daughter until she is allowed back in.

Although it is not known whether speed was an issue in this case, Katy said residents had long been campaigning for speed humps to be added to that road and the limit lowered from 30 to 20mph.

"That's the second time that a car has crashed on our corner," she added. "The first time it went up the kerb into my neighbour's Porsche. It's just really dangerous."

• Luke Charles Hutchins, aged 21 from Helston, has been charged with drink driving and is due to appear at Truro Magistrates Court on May 16.