Police investigate SUV crash inside home

WEST MIAMI-DADE, Fla. (WSVN) -- Police are still investigating how the driver of an SUV crashed into a South Florida home.

Maintenance crews are still cleaning up debris on Carlos Pacheco's backyard. Tuesday afternoon a gray SUV came tearing off the road, crashed through the homeowner's fence and landed inside his living room. "He was on the recliner next to the sliding doors," said relative Maria Mendez. "A couple of minutes earlier he was sitting out here smoking, and he'd just walked [back indoors]" she continued.

The victim's 13-year-old son had been sitting on the family's brand-new couch watching TV moments before the collision. "He went up from the sofa to drink some water," said a neighbor who caught a glimpse of the SUV right before it came crashing through Pacheco's home on Northwest 84th Court.

Witnesses say the iron gates took the hardest blow from the impact, but Pacheco was almost pinned down in his chair, covered in thousands of shards of glass.

"There's a lot of bruising on his face and scabs," said Mendez. "But the main thing is that he has glass embedded all over his body, and it's very painful," she added.

Rescuers rolled Pacheco out onto a stretcher and pulled the driver, Anibal Ortiz, out of his vehicle. "I went to see the driver, and he looked sleepy," said Pacheco's neighbor. "He was moving, and then I asked him, 'Are you drunk?,' and then he [nodded]," she recalled.

Pacheco is still at Kendall Regional Medical Center being treated. His family says he has a broken leg, as well as cuts, scrapes and bruises all over his body.

Ortiz has been charged with careless driving. Police say they are still looking at the toxicology report to see if he was driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the accident.

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