This is the dramatic moment an out-of-control car smashed through a reception foyer - only coming to a stop when it hit a metal safe.
A driver collapsed at the wheel of his Volkswagen Sharan people carrier shortly before the two-tonne vehicle plunged into the building at 40mph. Heart-stopping CCTV footage shows the car thundering into the reception area of John Stokes Ltd in Tipton, West Midlands, not long after a woman walked in front of the building.
Fortunately no one was hurt in the incident which occurred on Tuesday afternoon.
A crowd of panicked onlookers rushed towards the car after the crash - amazingly to see the driver walk away with only minor injuries.
Just minutes before the crash, business owner Dene Stokes, 59, was standing in the reception area with a client. Mr Stoke's son Tom, managing director of the chrome plating firm, said that the reception had only just undergone a £25,000 refurbishment last month.
"I was on the phone to my father at the time and I kept him talking longer than usual,” he said. “It was lucky that I did because he would have been back in reception if I hadn't have called.”
"Just minutes earlier he had been standing there with a client - it doesn't bare thinking about what could've happened if he was sitting on that sofa,” he added.
“Everyone is assuming he has just passed out at the wheel - it looks like he has gone in at 40 or 50mph in a completely straight line with no attempt to break or swerve.
"We have a five-ton metal safe in the building, and it looks like that's what stopped him."
Metal worker Frank Knight, 50, who saw the crash, said: "I saw him smash through the window at what must have been over 40mph - it didn't seem real. It was more like something out of a Hollywood film - the guy is incredibly lucky to walk away from that."
A spokeswoman for West Midlands Police said a man was treated in hospital for minor injuries after the incident and it is believed he “may have been taken ill prior to the collision."
