St. Pete resident exits living room moments before car crashes into it

ST. PETERSBURG (FOX 13) - An 81-year-old woman in St. Petersburg made a minor change to her routine Thursday and might be alive because of it after a car plowed through the front of her house.

Aileen Long normally sits in her favorite chair in her living room. She said she decided to move to the back porch where she was "drinking coffee and reading the paper and all of a sudden there was this screech and a horrible crash."

As startling as that sound was, she never expected to see a car in her house and in the exact spot she had just left.

"I opened my back door and this is what I saw, the whole front of the house gone, a car in it," Long told FOX 13. "Thank God I was outside. I usually sit right there in my chair watching TV."

St. Petersburg Police said the driver swerved for an unknown reason and careened through several yards before crashing into Long's home on 56th Avenue North.

"All I could think of, she hit the gas instead of the brake," said Long, referring to the driver. Police, however, are still investigating what caused the crash.

All Long's loved ones could think of was how concerned they were because they all know her routine.

"Right there in the corner, she sits there and watches TV and thank God above that she wasn't sitting there," said Scott Long, Aileen Long's son. "Things could have been a lot worse, I hope the driver's okay."

"[I was] scared because I know where my grandma usually sits and I know how close her chair is to the wall and as you can see the chair is no longer there," added her grandson, Corey Rolla.

Aileen isn't sure what she'll do next because she has no homeowner's insurance. She managing stay positive, however, because she knows this situation could have ended much worse.

"The house can be fixed and we'll go from there," she said.

Long said she has lived in her house for more than four decades and raised five children. It's unclear if she will be able to continue living there.