Broadcaster and fashion designer Brendan Courtney had what he described as a lucky escape when a car crashed through his garden and into the front of his house late on Saturday night. The incident happened just minutes after he had been standing at the point of impact.
Miraculously, the driver of the car, an 84-year-old woman, walked away from the crash. While Courtney said he was heartbroken by the scale of damage to his home in Wicklow town, which he has spent a year renovating, he acknowledged that “the universe” had been looking after him, his dog and the driver.
“I could be dead or paralysed and she could be dead or seriously injured,” Courtney told The Irish Times. “She came very close to hitting a lamp post at the front of my house head on, and that would have a been a very different story. We were both a bit shook. But I am fine and she is fine.”
In an Instagram post, he said the crash “has done unbelievable damage”, adding that he had “literally spent my entire life savings on this house”.
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Despite the devastation, he was able to invite the woman into his house and make her a cup of tea.
“She was really shaken, and I brought her in and made her a cup of tea. The cops were brilliant, fire brigade, ambulance, everybody came, but she’s fine. She’s okay, bless her,” he said.
The drama began at 11.05pm when “the dog was on the bed and I getting ready for bed too,” he said. “The whole house shook. I thought someone had lashed a brick through the window or maybe that it was a gas explosion.”
He only realised that he had been standing at the point of impact not long before the crash when he downloaded camera footage from his doorbell at the request of gardaí.
Strangely, this was not the first or even the second time a house he lived in had had a car crash into it. “The odd twist is, my parents’ house was on a corner, and we were known for our wall being crashed into when it was icy. I think that wall was crashed into 14 times.”
After he posted about the crash on Instagram, his “superhero” builder called around immediately and arranged to have the damaged portions of the house boarded up.
Some minor structural work was due to be carried out at the back of the house in the weeks ahead, but the focus will instead shift to the front, “with the whole wall likely to need replacing“.
“I suppose the bottom line is I am fine and she is fine, and we are both insured. It is the universe reminding us that we shouldn’t be worrying about the little things.”
