NEWARK As her Nissan Pathfinder leaped 10 feet in the air, crashed through a window and landed in the front room of a Newark townhouse, Magarette Etienne came to one clear conclusion.
She was about to die.
"Dont let me die like that," Etienne recalled thinking.
"While it was happening, I was thinking about my three kids," she said Friday, referring to her two daughters, 7 and 5, and her son, 2.
The 39-year-old West Orange resident was on her way home from a nursing class at Saint Michaels Medical Center. She stopped at a light on University Avenue shortly after 10 p.m. and said thats when her SUV began to surge.
She headed up West Market Street, desperately hitting the brakes, but to no avail. She sped through three traffic lights over roughly 2,000 feet before her SUV jumped the curb, striking several parking meters. The cabin then filled with black smoke, obscuring all sight.
"I passed some green lights and some red lights, and the last thing I know I hit something and then the car jumped somewhere," Etienne said.
The 3,675-pound vehicle threaded a narrow gap between a street lamp and a red light, then hit a grassy embankment that acted like a ramp and launched it into the Society Hill townhouse.
As the smoke cleared, Etienne said she heard voices.
"I didnt even know I was in the house," she said.
Etienne and everyone in the townhouse emerged without serious injury, authorities said.
Gloria Sinclair, the owner of the townhouse, said five minutes before the crash, her daughter and grandson were in the computer/play room where the SUV landed. Sinclair, 74, said she was in the next room, watching television.
"I just thought the whole house was caving in," she said. Only after firefighters rescued her from a side window did Sinclair understand what happened.
"You thought it was a bomb," said Evelyn Sykes, 28, who lives several houses away from the accident scene. "The house shook and the windows were shaking."
Just after 1 a.m. Friday, a flatbed tow truck used a winch to yank the vehicle from the house. A standing lamp hung from the vehicle.
Police said no criminal or motor vehicle charges will be filed against Etienne.
Friday, the gaping hole left by the vehicle was covered with plywood boards.
"Its a miracle Im alive," Etienne said. Taken from the scene on a stretcher, witnesses saw her raise a hand in the air in what they thought was a sign she was okay.
"Maybe I was saying thank you, God," she said.