Firefighters have extinguished a blaze inside a car after it crashed into an Adelaide business while carrying a tandoori oven with coals inside to an Indian restaurant.
Key points:
- The minivan crashed into a business in Adelaide’s south-west on Sunday morning
- A fire started in coals in a tandoori oven inside
- The driver was not badly injured
The Chrysler minivan hit the building on the corner of Marion Road and Cungena Avenue in Park Holme about 9:30am.
The Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) arrived at the scene to find smoke coming from the back of the vehicle from a small fire.
“Crews located a tandoori oven in the back of the car … but during the crash it caused some problems for the driver,” MFS commander Declan Dwyer said.
A verandah at the business that was hit, Ashmans Accounting, was damaged, along with the front wall.
The 34-year-old driver was taken to the Royal Adelaide Hospital by ambulance but his father, Surinder Kumar, who arrived after hearing from police about the crash, said his son was not badly injured.
Mr Kumar said the oven had been used for a family barbecue on Saturday and was being taken back to his restaurant, Royal Tandoori, in Parkside.
Raiden and Caitlin Schultz-Watts saw the car swerving before it hit the business.
“He was shaking and driving and I could see something wasn’t right,” Caitlin said.
“It was just like ‘keep an eye on him’ and I could see him veering off and I pulled over and helped out.”
They called triple-0 and opened the car’s doors after seeing smoke inside.
The crash caused traffic delays on Marion Road.
Car crashes into three houses
In a separate accident, a car crashed into several houses and a parked four-wheel drive in Adelaide’s northern suburbs early on Saturday morning.
Emergency services were called to Coventry Road at Smithfield Plains about 1:30am after a car left the road and crashed into three houses.
The 49-year-old driver from Davoren Park was taken to hospital with injuries to his hands.
Police believe a medical episode may have led to the crash.
Senior Constable Rebecca Stokes said it was lucky the car did not crash through the walls of the homes.
“[There is] a lot of damage to the front of the houses and when the Toyota Camry crashed into the Nissan X-Trail that was parked in the driveway, it pushed that into the front of the house as well,” she said.
“It does look like a little bit of a war zone.”