A WOMAN fighting cancer and her fiancé say they escaped death by inches after a car crashed into their Bradford on Avon home on Sunday, causing more than £30,000 damage.

Sam Vickery, 27, and Laura Saull, 28, and their dog, a wirehaired Vizsla called Betty, were in the front room when a Toyota Auris bulldozed into their Bath Road home just after 10am.

Ms Saull, who has stage four cancer, and Mr Vickery, her full-time carer, have been forced to move more than 100 miles away to stay with his family in Coventry.

With Ms Saull needing weekly treatment at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, they are now desperately looking for a new home.

“He could have killed us. I was standing right where the car ended up 30 seconds before. The debris could have caused a fatal accident too,” said Mr Vickery who, along with his next door neighbours, were evacuated from their homes on Sunday night.

“I got stuck in the kitchen as the car had blocked the door into the living room and the driver just kept on revving.

“This is an extremely difficult time for both of us and it makes getting Laura’s medicine much harder, having to go to and from Coventry. It is just a dire situation.”

Ms Saull, who has breast, brain and bone cancer, is planning her dream wedding at Wick Farm, Farleigh Hungerford, in October after raising more than £7,000 from a Crowdfunding appeal in February.

She is also on hormone treatment to slow her cancer’s growth.

On Sunday and again on Tuesday, firefighters used steel supports to reinforce the building, opposite the junction of Berryfield Road. Mr Vickery said he has been told the repairs could take six months to complete.

The man driving the car, who was in his 70s, lost control when he was leaving Berryfield Road and shot across the road, mounting the curb and crashing through the wooden roadside barrier into their home.

“Trying to find somewhere to stay with a dog is almost impossible. I have been on the phone for two days straight - we are really struggling. They have to restructure the whole place.”

“What made it worse was how unapologetic he was. He was joking and laughing and he did not even say sorry or show any remorse,” he said.

“We do not particularly want to go back now. Laura actually saw it through the window which, as you can imagine, was terrifying. It is scary to think what could have happened. They have to put in steel barriers. It is an accident waiting to happen. It is horrible to think but what if school children were walking along the pavement and that happened.”

Bath Road was closed from approximately 10.30am and was reopened around 4pm. No-one was injured in the incident.

Neighbour Adrian Webster, 26, said: “I thought a boiler had exploded as there was a huge bang. I looked outside and saw the bizarre sight of a car sticking out of the house. It was lucky nobody was hurt.”

Sue Kershaw, of White Stripe Crossings, a community group for pedestrian safety, said: “This was a shocking incident occurring on a route for Christchurch and St Laurence School pedestrians.

“As a result of the accident, the footpath remains closed, which has restricted the access to the school crossing patrol, resulting in more pedestrians having to cross the Bath Road at an alternative point where there is no traffic control. We hope the council will consider upgrading this fencing.”