SUV plows into home

LYNDHURST — For nearly an hour Friday, a seat belt held a Lyndhurst man upside down as he waited for rescuers to cut him from the Ford Explorer he overturned and rammed into a house.

Clayton Coffey, 54, emerged coherent and able to converse, before rescuers flew him to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, state police Trooper A.R. Johnson said.

Just before 4 p.m., Coffey, traveling three miles from his home on Mount Torrey Road, drove through a stone wall and shrubbery before crashing into a 109-year-old, two-story home at 2350 Lyndhurst Road.

Large rocks from the wall were blown dozens of feet into the air and lay scattered across the front lawn of the house.

Police said Coffey, who suffers from cancer, was headed to the hospital to undergo testing.

“He told me that he thought he’d hit the brake,” Johnson said. 

Dozens of Waynesboro and Augusta County firefighters worked to extricate Coffey while fearing for the structural integrity of the home, authorities said.

More than 10 emergency vehicles scattered the road at the intersection, corking traffic for about a half-hour. Passersby and neighbors winced, some with hand-covered mouths, when they saw the wreck. The vehicle had smashed directly through the front door of the house.

The house, built in 1900, is valued at $167,000, according to county records.

No one was home during the crash. A woman who answered the house phone in the evening said the homeowners were “kind of shaky right now” and declined to comment.

The cause of the crash and driver’s speed were not known, said Johnson, who noted the vehicle had an improperly registered tag.

Staff writer Tony Gonzalez contributed to this report.