A longtime New Jersey high school track and field coach and his wife were killed Saturday night when their car crashed into a home, police said.
Thomas Hengel, 72, and his wife, 61-year-old Lisa Hengel, were killed in the wreck in Harrison Township, local police said in a press release. No one in the home was harmed.
However, the residence did erupt in flames upon impact of the Hengels’ car, the Harrison Township Police Department said. Emergency crews responded and doused the flames.
Hengel was driving a 2020 Hyundai Palisade when for unknown reasons he suddenly accelerated, hopped a curb, drove through two front yards and slammed into the house “with enough force to go through the wall and into the residence’s living room,” Harrison police stated.
“The family whose home it was, by the grace of God, was not in that front living room at the time where the vehicle crashed into,” Harrison Police Chief Ronald Cundey told NJ.com. “They were in their kitchen eating dinner.”
The impact caused both the car and house to go up in flames, authorities said. The wreck remains under investigation, but police believe it was a tragic accident.
Hengel was a cross country and track and field coach at Clearview Regional High School from the 1980s until he retired in the 2010s. Gloucester County inducted him into its local sports hall of fame.
“A loyal and dedicated Pioneer, Tom has also coached basketball, winter track, and spring track at Clearview for a total of 94 combined seasons!” the Gloucester County Sports Hall of Fame wrote upon his induction in 2018. “His girls winter track teams have captured three state championships, and his teams have produced a long list of individual state champions in both boys and girls track.”
