Surveying the damage to his family home of 50 years caused by a car which went airborne, Paul Wilkinson said he has no axe to grind with the driver.
Arguments rage on social media about the speed the Vauxhall Corsa might have been travelling to leave a main road, clear a hedge and collide with the first floor of the semi-detached house in Hop Pole, near Deeping St Nicholas.
But Mr Wilkinson (64) brushed those aside and refuses to criticise the driver, saying: “It was an accident. It’s a house and the driver wasn’t badly injured – that’s what is important.
“I’m just pleased nobody was standing at the top of the avenue.”
Last Wednesday’s crash brought fresh pain for Mr Wilkinson and his partner Vicky Muxlow. Her granddaughter was killed in an accident just 200 yards away.
Katie Shields (18) died when the car she was driving was hit by Charles Dobney’s Jeep at 70mph. Dobney, of Surfleet, was jailed for two years for causing death by dangerous driving.
Mrs Muxlow (71) said: “When I heard about this accident last week, it just brought back memories of seven years ago.
“Luckily the driver didn’t kill himself or anybody else.
“We know how it feels to lose somebody.”
Meanwhile, assessment of the damaged house continues.
The car ripped into Mr Wilkinson’s bedroom. His bed now lies in the garden of the property in Carrington Drive.
He learned about the mid-afternoon accident in a phone call from Vicky’s daughter Christine.
The retired BT engineer said: “I was in Peterborough at the time. She told me a car had gone into my garden.
“I expected to return to maybe some tyre tracks so it was a shock.”
He added: “I want to get back in my home as soon as I can.”
The 26-year-old car driver, from Market Deeping, was flown to Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham and treated for broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder.
Lincolnshire Police are investigating the accident. A spokesman confirmed that reports stating that the driver would not face action are premature.
In a reference to the speed of the car on the 50mph Littleworth Drove, Mrs Muxlow said: “He must have had his foot on the accelerator.”
