TEXAS CITY — Derrick Taylor and his family were jolted out of bed about 2 a.m. Monday to the sound of a car crash that caved in part of their home.

What Taylor found outside his mother’s Tarpey Road home was a family member’s car wedged against the house and a pile of brick and wood debris scattered from the impact of a high-speed collision in the backyard.

“It was so loud I thought lightning had struck or a plant blew up,” said Taylor, who was sleeping on his mother’s couch just feet from the collision.

Taylor, 43, said a car traveling south on Appomattox Drive gained enough speed that it crossed Monticello Drive and completely cleared a 30-foot wide and 4-foot deep drainage ditch before crashing through their privacy fence.

The fence was still standing Monday afternoon, but had a hole in it the size of the older-model Ford Crown Victoria.

The Ford slammed into a family member’s car, rolling it on its side, and pushed it into the exterior wall of Ada Ross’ master bathroom, which she had left only a few minutes before the collision.

“I jumped up and saw wood coming through the door,” Ross said.

“I didn’t know what had happened but that the house had blown up.”

Taylor said if his sister’s car hadn’t been in the way, the Ford could easily have punched into the master bedroom where his mother was sleeping.

“It’s mind-boggling to think just how fast he was going,” Taylor said. “Police said he had to have been going faster than 50 mph. He might have just dozed off and his foot hit the pedal.”

After making sure no one side was injured, Taylor grabbed a flashlight, lifted the garage door and wondered whether the driver was alive.

“He was wearing his seat belt,” Taylor said.

“That’s probably what saved him. Otherwise, he’d have been through the front windshield and in the rubble. I’ve seen shows about crashes, but this blows my mind. I can’t believe it,” Taylor said.

Smelling gasoline and fearing an explosion, the family left the house until police and firefighters arrived.

Cpl. Elroy Montgomery of Texas City police said officers found the driver trapped inside his car, and firefighters had to use hydraulic tools to cut him out.

Montgomery didn’t know the name of the driver, because he said a report on the incident wasn’t complete Monday afternoon.

The driver was taken to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Montgomery said.

He had not been charged, Montgomery said.

Taylor said he found the driver unresponsive at first, but he wasn’t bleeding and was talking when emergency crews placed him on a stretcher for an ambulance ride.

“If you saw the accident, you would swear there was no way anyone would survive it,” Taylor said.

Montgomery said the driver’s injuries didn’t appear to be life-threatening.

Ross said she had insurance but wondered if the driver had insurance to cover the damages.

The collision was so fierce, it buckled the home’s windows along the back wall.

Those windows won’t open, Ross said.

Taylor said the driver might have been leaving a relative’s house on Appomattox Drive.