A Waterford city mother of two spoke last night of how she was lucky to be alive after an out-of-control tractor came crashing into the living room of her terraced home yesterday morning.
Ms Helen Power, of Morrissons's Road, had been watching television at 1.15 a.m. when the tractor with five occupants and a dog demolished the front wall of her house and left her trapped in an armchair amid the debris.
Two youths were later arrested and questioned at Waterford Garda station in connection with the incident, while a further three who left the scene also helped gardai with their inquiries yesterday.
The tractor, which was not stolen, had been driven from the Slieverue area of south Kilkenny to Waterford where it went out of control. Before crashing into the front wall of the Power home, it struck two parked cars.
A Garda spokesman said last night the incident was still under investigation and a file was being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions. "The tractor was not the subject of unauthorised taking, and among those initially arrested were a 22-year-old male and a youth in his teens," he said.
Ms Power, who suffered torn ligaments in her right leg, was in shock yesterday. "The incident was like something out of a horror movie," she said.
She told how she had been watching recorded episodes of Coronation Street when the tractor plunged into her room. "My husband, Tommy, my daughter, Eileen, and my brother were asleep upstairs when, without warning, there was a loud bang and a crash and the window was swinging from the wall like a leaf in the wind.
"I was sitting near the wall and beside the gas meter and I was literally pushed along the floor in the chair. My leg was trapped under the mortar and bricks and I had to be carried through a space where the window was by neighbours."
Although the house is privately owned, Waterford Corporation has stepped in to find alternative accommodation for the family and has also taken steps to secure the building.
Last night Ms Power, her husband, son, daughter and brother were staying with friends. They will get the keys of a local authority house at nearby Ignatius Street tomorrow afternoon.