A runaway car missed three playing children by “just a few feet” as it hit two electricity boxes and ran through two front gardens before crashing into a house.

The elderly woman driver of the car also escaped injury in the incident yesterday on the Laghtagoona housing estate in Corofin, Co Clare.

It is believed the driver may have accidentally placed the automatic Suzuki car in reverse before it took off without warning.

The car is believed to have travelled backwards about 15 metres down a hill where it hit one ESB pillar box, smashed through a second and careered through the gardens and driveways of two homes.

The three children, who were playing in the front of one of the houses, are said to have been lucky not to have been struck by the car.

One local said the children were “only feet” from the car as it passed them.

Two units of the Clare County Fire and Rescue Service from Ennis were sent to the scene, along with ambulance paramedics and gardaí.

Paramedics assessed the driver of the car but found that although shaken, she was otherwise uninjured.

One local man said: “I came outside after I heard the bang.

“I saw the car backed into the corner of a house and children still standing in the front of another house.

“I couldn’t figure out at first what had happened but it looks like the car was in reverse and just motored backwards down the hill.

“It took out one ESB box and hit another one.

“It went through a garden and two driveways by the look of it.”

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