Winter Garden: Vehicle crashes into house, kills 1

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One man was hurt and another was killed when a vehicle crashed into a home in Winter Garden Monday.

It happened around 11 a.m. along Wild Blackberry Trail, just east of the Horizon West area.

According to Florida Highway Patrol, a 22-year-old driving a Toyota Camry failed to negotiate a curve and struck a mailbox, tree and light pole before striking a 71-year-old pedestrian.

Officials say the Toyota continued and struck a porch connected to the front of a house.

The Toyota driver was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries.

The 71-year-old pedestrian was pronounced dead on the scene.

There were tears, disbelief and confusion. People say it’s usually a quiet neighborhood. Christina Tadrus was one of many neighbors living near Wild Blackberry Trail who heard the red Camry leaving its path of destruction.

“I ran outside and I hear screaming and cars and everyone running towards the scene. I was in my living room and all of a sudden I hear a crash outside. It was really loud. It was really scary,” Tadrus said. “I got up, ran really quickly, then I just saw the car crashed into the house and the columns were all ripped off. My heart dropped cause I've never seen anything like that before in my life.”

While troopers work to find answers as to how this happened and why, folks living in the Horizon West neighborhood feel brokenhearted and vulnerable.

"I could have been walking here. Me or my wife, we just had a kid. Things like this, it's just unfathomable. I just can't imagine this would even happen,” neighbor Jordan Kleiman said.

Erich Dale lives around the corner from the home.

"It’s just sad to see somebody’s not coming home tonight," Dale said.

Dale used to live next door to the home where the crash happened. He says speeding is a common problem.

"This is a really good cut-through between the 429 connectors, New Independence Parkway to Old Thicket Trace, which leads to Disney,” he said.

Dale says drivers often run right through the stop signs.

"It varies, but it could be 8 a.m., someone rushing to work. We have our school traffic. We have even it at 2 a.m. We’re in our house and we hear someone zip through our neighborhood. The only way they can zip through is if they’re running stop signs," he said.

It's a scary reality for residents like Doug Knisely who walk the neighborhood every day.

"Any time we’re out here walking, if you hear the car, I always turn around and take a look because you don’t know what’s going to happen or not. At that point, some of these cars are going well over the speed limit," he said.

Neighbors say they hope to see changes made in their neighborhood through speed bumps and stop signs.

Neither the driver nor the pedestrian has been identified. The man driving the Camry was seriously injured and is in the hospital.

Watch Chopper 2 fly over scene