CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A family's home is unlivable after a suspected drunken driver smashed into it over the weekend in east Charlotte.
The wreck happened Sunday around 11 p.m. Police said bushes and a flower bed in front of the home on Snow Bird Lane didn’t stop the driver from crashing through a wall, leaving a gaping hole.
Channel 9 spoke with the homeowners, who said there was a grandmother on the other side of that wall, sleeping in a recliner at the time of impact. The Lawhorn family is now homeless but said the 77-year-old grandmother is lucky to be alive.
(Damage from inside the home)
"You hear the screeching and then you hear the boom. I'm thinking it hit a car. I didn't think it actually hit the house," said Marcus Lawhorn.
He and his wife, Nyiesha, found the mess -- and his grandmother in desperate need of help.
"I heard my grandma yelling, 'My head,' and I jumped to the hallway and I saw my grandma with like blood pouring down her face," Marcus Lawhorn said. "I saw the actual sheetrock falling down from the house. It was -- you don't believe it."
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Nyiesha Lawhorn is an Army veteran and her military training helped her control her grandmother's bleeding. She said she then ran outside to confront the driver, still parked in their house.
"You could have taken my grandmother's life or anybody else at my house," she told him.
Police said Martin Hernandez was behind the wheel, trying to escape -- and even apologized.
"He was not getting out of the car. He just kept saying, ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry,’ revving the engine," Nyiesha Lawhorn told Channel 9. "He hit my brother's car and just took off."
The Lawhorns now need another home to rent.
“We're deplenishing our savings to stay here (in a hotel)," Marcus Lawhorn said. “It's going to start hitting us hard within a week. I just hope he (Hernandez) can get some help. I hope that he does have to do some time."
Hernandez was arrested and charged with two different counts of hit-and-run and a drug charge.