“If he didn’t hit my car, he probably would’ve crashed into my house,” the 67-year-old widower said. “(The sound) was like a bomb going off.”

The crash occurred after police chased a 19-year-old Ottawa man suspected of committing an assault at a nearby residence.

The driver was injured in the crash — which occurred at Ward’s house on Pépin Court at Old Innes Road, near the Blackburn Hamlet Bypass. He was transported to The Ottawa Hospital’s Civic campus Thursday night and released Friday.

He was taken into police custody in relation to the assault investigation. No charges have been laid in the assault, but investigators expect to lay charges pending further investigation.

The victim of the alleged assault is a 55-year-old man, who was taken to hospital with serious, non-life threatening injuries.

He was still in hospital Friday night with “aggravated” injuries, said Det. Denis Chevalier.

The two men knew each other, he said. There was no weapon involved in the assault.

The names of the men have not been released.

Police said they were called to a house on Cleroux Crescent — just south of Old Innes Road — around 10:30 p.m. Thursday for a report of an assault. When they got there, officers were told the suspect had just left, heading west in a white Pontiac.

Police gave chase west along Old Innes Road, but the driver lost control where the road curves toward the Blackburn Hamlet Bypass. The car skipped over the curb, rolled over and crashed into Ward’s 2001 Hyundai Sonata and then into his garage.

Ward said it took 30 minutes to an hour for firefighters to extricate the man from his vehicle.

“The guy was pinned in the car — and on the passenger side,” Ward said, adding that the crash happened about three metres from his bedroom window.

Ottawa police called the province’s Special Investigations Unit just after midnight, said Frank Phillips, a spokesman for the agency.

The SIU, a civilian agency that investigates when police officers are involved in an incident that causes the serious injury or death of a civilian, had assigned three investigators, two forensic experts and a collision reconstructionist on the case. They spent the day at the scene of the crash.

The investigation was turned over to the Ottawa Police late Friday afternoon. In a release, police said that the “threshold” for the SIU to become involved — serious injury — was not met in this case.

Innes Road was closed west from Bearbrook Road to the Blackburn Bypass all morning Friday as the SIU investigated the scene. A traffic sign near Pépin Court was completely bent over and a section of fencing outside Ward’s residence appeared to be run over. Various car parts were strewn across Ward’s lawn.

“When I looked out in the dark all I could see were his headlights on top of my car,” Ward said, adding that after he heard the sound of the crash, he knew what must have happened because of a similar accident on the property last year.

Ward, who has rented the house from the National Capital Commission for the past six years, said a driver sped around the corner and lost control at the bend, basically in the same area as the crash Thursday.

“It’s unsafe; there should be a wall up there,” he said, adding that the “skimpy” farm fences simply aren’t good enough.

“That’s a dangerous curve and people can’t make that turn when they’re going fast. They end up vaulting over the curb and through the fence.”